hlVf: 


*Ueckraan.   Wallace; 59  Unity  bldg. 
Dearborn  st.  ,*3.-— 


Live  Questions: 


INCLUDING 


OUR  PENAL  AACniNER^' 


Its  \'icTi.ns. 


BY 

JOHX    p.  AT.TGELD. 


Chicago  : 

nONOHUE  &  HENNEBERRY, 

l8(jo. 


CONTENTS. 


Protection  of    Non-Combatants  or  Compulsory  Arbitration   of 

Strikes . ,  ^ 

Pensions  for  Soldiers 22 

Justice  to  Deaf  Soldiers 45 

The      Administration    of     Justice     in    Chicago — Unanimous 

Juries ^S 

The  Abolition  of  Constables  —  Justices -and  The  Fee  Systems.  62 

Protecting  The  Ballot  Box  —  Australian  Plan 65 

Is  The  World  Worse?— Divorces  — Moral  Training 69 

The  Rich  Man's  Bread  and  The  Poor— Cardinal  Manning   74 

Slave  Girls  of  Chicago — Legislation  For 80 

Anonymous  Journalism  and  Its  Effects cjo 

The  Immigrant's  Answer , 104 

The  Eight-Hour  Movement 122 

Our  Penal  Machinery  And  Its  Victims 153 


PREFACE. 

The  questions  treated  in  this  book  are  not  only 
questions  of  the  day  —  pressing  for  solution — but  many 
of  them  vitally  affect  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  man- 
kind, and  can  only  be  intelligently  settled  by  a  thorough 
investigation  and  wide  discussion.  J.   P.  A. 

Chicago,  April,  1890. 


Live  Questions. 

PROTECTION  OF  NON-COMBATANTS; 

OR, 

ARBITRATION  OF  STRIKES. 


{^Published  in  the  Chicago  Evening  Mail  of  April  26,  iS86.'\ 


Can  the  State  enforce  arbitration  in  a  strike? 

This  question  at  once  resolves  itself  into  two: 

First:  Has  the  State  the  right  or  the  constitutional  power 
to  co77ipel  arbitration  independent  of  the  will  of  the  contending 
parties  ? 

Secondly:  1/  if  has  the  right,  is  it  feasible  to  exercise  it, 
and  in  what  manner  and  how  far  can  it  enforce  its  award? 

It  is  assumed  by  many  in  this  country  that  in  a  strike 
the  State  is  powerless  as  a  mediator;  that  its  sole  func- 
tion in  such  a  time  is  to  keep  the  public  peace,  and  that 
so  long  as  the  latter  is  not  disturbed  the  State  must 
remain  an  idle  spectator;  that  every  person  has  the  right 
to  do  as  he  likes  with  his  property  or  with  his  labor;  that 
the  employer  has  the  right  in  all  cases  to  employ  and 
to  discharge  whom  he  thinks  proper,  and  when  he  thinks 
proper,  and  to  pay  what  wages  he  pleases;  and  that  the 
laborer  has  the  right  in  all  cases  to  work  when,  and  for 
whom  he  thinks  best;  and  that  neither  employer  nor 
employe  stands  in  such  a  relation  to  society  at  large 
as  to  give  the   State,  as  the  conservator  of  all  classes 


(7) 


8  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

and  interests,  any  right  in  case  of  a  strike  to  inter- 
fere without  the  express  consent  of  the  parties  to  the 
dispute.  As  strikes  are  often  of  such  magnitude  as 
to  affect  the  entire  country,  if  long  continued,  this  doc- 
trine in  effect  affirms  tlie  following  propositions: 

1.  That  the  rights  which  a  man  has  in  a  state  of 
nature  are  not  greatly  modified  or  limited  by  his  becom- 
ing a  member  of  our  complex  society;  that  although  all 
of  the  members  of  the  latter  are  interdependent,  each 
being  affected  by  the  conduct  of  the  others,  yet  that  a 
limited  number  of  these  members  have  the  constitu- 
tional right  to  pursue  a  course  which  is  not  only  injuri- 
ous to  the' whole,  but  which,  if  persisted  in  sufficiently 
long,  must  result  in  a  dissolution  of  society;  that  the 
remainder,  although  they  may  constitute  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  whole,  have  no  constitutional  right  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  the  consequences  of  such  conduct. 
In  short,  that  the  State,  as  the  embodiment  of  society, 
has  no  power  to  prevent  or  to  remove  those  conditions 
which,  if  left  alone,  would  lead  to  its  own  overthrow. 

2.  That  although  great  changes  in  the  method  of 
production  and  of  transportation  in  this  country  have 
altered  the  natural  order  of  things,  as  it  existed  one 
hundred  years  ago;  have  already  destroyed  and  tend 
more  and  more  to  destroy  independent  occupations; 
and  although  great  corporations  have  grown  up  with 
thousands  of  men  in  their  employ,  who  are  almost  at 
their  mercy;  and  although  business  is  tending  more  and 
more  to  be  centralized  and  controlled  by  a  few;  and 
although  it  is  vital  to  the  very  existence  of  society,  as 
now   constituted,    that    business    in    its   various   forms 


ARBITRATlOy   OF   STRIKES.  .     9 

should  go  on  regularly  and  without  great  interruption; 
and  that  these  corporations,  particularly  public  carriers, 
should  be  not  only  required,  but  also  enabled  to  do  their 
work  without  delay,  for  every  interruption  of  their  opera- 
tions subjects  the  public  to  serious  loss  and  inconven- 
ience; yet,  as  the  relation  between  employer  and  employe 
is  one  of  contract,  the  State  can  in  no  case  interfere  to 
protect  the  interests  of  the  public  at  large,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  the  highest  courts  of  the  land  have,  in 
other  cases  of  contract,  held  that  the  State  can  interfere 
for  the  protection  of  the  public.  For  example,  in  those 
cases  relating  to  the  rate  of  interest  which  may  be 
charged,  the  amount  of  toll  which  may  be  charged,  the 
rate  of  fare  which  may  be  charged,  and  the  rate  which 
may  be  charged  for  storing  grain. 

3.  That  although  this  is  an  age  of  great  division  of 
labor,  by  reason  of  which  thousands  of  men  in  one  line 
of  industry  are  dependent  for  work,  and  consequently 
for  the  means  of  subsistence,  on  the  industry  of  others, 
yet,  if  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  between  employer 
and  employe  in  any  one  line  all  other  industries  should 
become  paralyzed,  (for  example,  during  the  recent  strike 
of  the  coke  makers  in  Pennsylvania,  many  large  iron 
mills  had  to  shut  down  for  want  of  coke,  thus  throwing 
the  ironworkers  out  of  employment,  while  through  these 
in  turn  other  industries  were  affected,)  *  the  State  has 
"no  power  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  difficulty,  and 
dare,  under  no  circumstances,  interfere  for  the  protection 


+  Note— Since  publishing  the  above  there  has  been  a  number  of  instances 
of  whole  communities  of  non-combatants  being-  almost  paralyzed,  because  the 
regular  operations  of  great  corporations  were  interrupted  by  strikes— notably 
the  strikes  on  the  Gould  and  on  the  Burlington  systems  of  railroads. 


lO  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

of  the  non-combatants,  but  must  stand  by  idle  and  help- 
less while  its  very  existence  is  being  jeopardized.  In 
short,  that  the  doctrine  that  was  supposed  to  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  all  civil  society,  viz.:  that  every  man  can 
do  as  he  pleases  with  what  is  his  own  so  long  only  as  his 
conduct  docs  not  injuriously  affect  others,  has  no  appli- 
cation here. 

4.  That  while  the  State  must  bear  the  burden  of  sup- 
pressing crime  and  of  supporting  paupers,  yet  it  derives 
from  this  duty  no  corresponding  right  or  powder  to  arrest 
or  to  remove  those  conditions  which  are  certain  to  breed 
both  criminals  and  paupers. 

5.  That  an  individual  or  corporation  may  interfere 
with  the  natural  distribution  of  population,  and  cause 
several  thousand  laborers  with  their  families  to  settle  in 
a  location  where  they  would  otherwise  not  have  settled, 
and  where  there  are  no  opportunities  of  earning  a  living 
except  w^hat  are  furnished  by  such  individual  or  corpora- 
tion as  employer,  and  that  the  State  has  no  right  to  see 
that  these  people  shall  not  become  a  burden  to  the  State 
by  thus  being  made  either  paupers  or  criminals,  but  that 
when  they  are,  as  it  were,  in  the  hands  of  the  employer, 
and  have  it  not  in  their  power  to  go  and  make  a  living 
elsewhere,  the  employer  may,  in  case  of  a  disagreement, 
lock  them  all  out,  and  may  bring  on  several  thousand 
more  {who  otherwise  would  not  have  come  there),  and 
put  these  in  place  of  the  former,  and  in  case  of  a  second' 
disagreement,  may  bring  on  a  third  lot,  and  so  on,  each 
time  leaving  his  former  workmen  and  their  families  with- 
out the  means  of  subsistence,  and  in  a  condition  in 
which  they  are  certain  to  become  a  burden  on  the  State, 


ARBITRATION  OF  STRIKES.  II 

part  as  criminals,  and  part  as  paupers.  And  yet  the 
State  has  no  right  or  power  to  interfere,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  but  for  the  action  of  such  employer 
these  people  would  not  have  settled  in  that  locality,  but 
would  have  distributed  themselves  over  the  country 
more  nearly  in  proportion  to  the  natural  means  of  sub- 
sistence offered,  and  would  not  have  become  a  burden  on 
the  State. 

6.  Or  that  several  hundred  employes  may  impose 
terms  upon  an  employer  with  which  he  can  not  comply 
without  actual  loss;  and  if  he  declines  to  accede  they 
can  prevent  him  from  employing  other  men,  and  thus 
force  him  to  shut  down,  although  by  so  doing  a  whole 
series  of  other  manufacturing  establishments  are  obliged 
to  stop  work  and  their  men  to  be  idle  because  they  need 
the  goods  made  by  the  first;  so  that  in  the  end  all  indus- 
tries will  become  paralyzed,  the  public  generally  put  to 
great  inconvenience,  thousands  of  men  everywhere,  who 
have  no  trouble  with  their  employers,  will  be  thrown  out 
of  work,  and  those  conditions  which  breed  crime  and 
pauperism  are  created  in  a  most  aggravated  form.  Yet 
the  State  must  stand  idly  b}'',  simply  because  the  parties 
that  originated  the  quarrel  are  too  stubborn  to  com- 
promise or  to  agree  to  arbitrate. 

The  bare  statement  of  these  propositions  is  all  the 
refutation  they  need.  Every  duty  imposed  upon  the  State 
implies  a  corresponding  right.  The  duty  of  the  State  is 
not  simply  to  protect  life  and  property,  but,  also,  to  enable 
all  those  agencies  that  are  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  modern  society,  to  perform  their  functions  properly. 
Besides,  every  government  possesses  the  inherent  right 


12  LTVE  QUESTIONS. 

of  self-preservation,  at  least  so  far  as  that  it  may,  by  all 
means  within  its  power,  resist  those  antagonistic  or  dis- 
integrating forces  which  tend  to  its  destruction.  It  can 
resist  foreign  invasion,  can  suppress  internal  rebellion, 
and  can  suppress  and  punish  crime.  It  can  do  things 
without  number  which  are  designed  for  the  benefit  of 
the  entire  public,  although  in  doing  them  it  may  in  a 
measure  modify  or  curtail  what  have  been  supposed  to 
be  the  natural  rights  of  man.  To  hold,  therefore,  that  it 
can  not  inquire  into  or  remove  those  conditions  which 
notonl}'  breed  crime  and  pauperism,  but  which,  if  left 
al(jne,  must  in  time  bring  about  the  ruin  of  society  and 
the  overthrow  of  the  government,  would  be  an  absurd- 
ity. It  is  the  duty  of  the  government  to  conserve  and 
protect  all  interests,  and,  being  its  duty,  there  can  be  no 
question  about  its  power. 

The  objections  so  commonly  urged  against  paternal 
government  have  here  no  application.  For  in  all  cases 
where  it  is  found  to  exist,  as  in  the  countries  of  the  old 
world,  or  in  the  imposition  of  protective  duties  in  this 
country,  the  State  steps  in  at  the  beginning  and  regu- 
lates affairs  without  first  giving  individuals  an  oppor- 
tunity to  get  along  without  State  interference,  while 
here  the  State  allows  employer  and  employe  to  manage 
their  own  affairs,  and  claims  the  right  to  interpose  only 
after  they  have  failed;  and  then  only  in  cases  where  the 
interests  of  the  public  are  being  injuriouslv  affected  in 
consequence  of  such  failure. 

The  question  is,  can  there  lawfully  be  any  govern- 
ment or  public  agency  to  regulate  or  to  control  this 
condition  of  affairs.      As  to  nearly  all  other  conditions 


ARBITRATION  OF  STRIKES.  13 

or  disturbances  which  injuriously  affect  society,  no  one 
questions  the  right  of  the  State  to  interfere.  Now,  why 
should  it  not  interfere  in  this  instance? 

That  the  machinery  or  form  of  government  adopted, 
to  meet  troubles  of  this  character,  must  be  "of  the 
people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people,"  in  order  to 
be  successful,  is  unquestionably  true.  But  that  it  is  as 
much  the  duty  of  the  State  to  prevent  injuries  to  the 
public  at  large  from  strikes  as  it  is  its  duty  to  prevent 
injuries  from  any  other  cause,  is  equally  true. 

BUT,    ADMITTING    THE    RIGHT,    IS   IT    PRACTICABLE    TO 
ENFORCE    IT? 

This  is  a  serious  question.  The  first  inquiry  one 
hears  is:  "Well,  what  can,"  or  "what  shall  the  State 
do?"  And  the  answer  frequently  heard  is:  "Create 
boards  of  arbitration  to  settle  all  these  disputes  between 
employer  and  employe."  Yes,  that  is  all  right,  so  far, 
but,  having  got  the  board  created,  let  us  see  what,  from 
the  nature  of  things,  it  can  and  can  not  do. 

At  the  threshold  it  meets  some  natural  limitations 
which  no  legislation  can  overcome. 

1.  The  board  can  not  compel  the  employer  to  run 
his  mill,  for  he  may  not  be  able  to  do  it,  or  may  think 
that  it  can  not  be  run  without  loss,  or  for  a  number  of 
reasons  he  may  not  desire  to  run  it.  And,  I  repeat,  the 
board  can  not  run  it  for  him. 

2.  The  board  can  not  impose  terms  which  would 
make  it  impossible  for  the  employer  to  continue  his 
business  without  actual  loss,  for  to  do  this  would  be  to 
render  his  property  employed  in  his  business  worthless; 


14  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

would  practically  destroy  it  without  making  compensa- 
tion for  it,  which,  according  to  the  settled  principles  of 
American  jurisprudence,  can  not  be  done. 

3.  The  board  can  not  force  a  man  or  a  large  number 
of  men  to  enter  a  factory  and  to  go  to  work  and  to  con- 
tinue to  work  against  their  will. 

With  these  limitations  in  view,  let  us  set  the  board 
in  motion.  A  strike,  with  its  usual  accompaniments, 
exists  in  the  neighborhood.  The  board  takes  cogni- 
zance of  it,  inquires  into  the  trouble  according  to  rules 
of  procedure  which  it  has  established,  and  it  finds  that 
the  employer  is  in  the  wrong,  and  it  so  decides.  It  fixes 
a  price  which  he  shall  pay,  or  determines  in  other 
respects  what  he  shall  do.  Now,  if  he  elects  not  to  run 
his  mill,  that  is  the  end  of  the  matter.  But  if  he  desires, 
either  then  or  in  the  future,  to  go  on,  then  the  board 
can  require  him  to  do  so  on  the  terms  it  laid  down,  and 
can  further  provide  that  he  shall  not  employ  any  new 
men  until  he  has  given  his  old  employes  an  opportunity 
to  go  to  work  on  the  terms  fixed  by  the  board.  If  he 
objects  that  he  should  not  be  interfered  with  in  his  bus- 
iness, it  may  be  replied  that  there  was  no  interference 
until  there  was  such  a  condition  of  affairs  about  his 
premises  as  was  injuriously  affecting  the  good  order  or 
well-being  of  society.  And  if  he  objects  that  he  should 
be  permitted  to  employ  whom  he  pleases,  it  may  be 
answered  that  he  had  interfered  with  the  natural  dis- 
tribution of  population,  and  had  led  a  large  number  of 
people,  /'.  e.,  his  former  employes,  to  settle  around  him, 
who  otherwise  might  not  have  settled  there,  and  that 
it  would  be  against  the  well-being  of  society  that  these 


ARBITRATIOX  OF  STRIATES.  15 

should  all  at  once  be  thrown  out  of  employment  and 
their  places  filled  with  others,  as  they  would  thus  be  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  burden  on  the  public;  that  if  he 
desires  to  make  a  change  it  must  be  done  gradually,  so 
that  there  will  be  no  danger  of  the  public  peace  being 
disturbed  or  of  the  public  burdens  being  increased.  It 
is  clear  that  in  this  case  it  is  feasible  to  carry  out  the 
decree  or  the  award  of  the  board. 

But  we  now  accompany  the  board  to  another  strike. 
Here,  after  careful  inquiry,  the  board  decides  that  the 
X  employes  are  in  the  wrong,  and  it  fixes  the  terms  upon 
which  they  shall  return  to  work.  Now,  if  they  all  decline 
to  go,  then,  as  already  stated,  the  board  can  not  compel 
them. 

But  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  consider  such  a  con- 
tingency, for  it  is  not  likely  to  happen.  All  experience 
points  the  other  way.  As  a  rule  the  employes  have  no 
alternative — they  have  no  other  means  of  getting  bread 
for  themselves  or  their  children.  It  is  true  that  at  pres- 
ent they  sometimes  hold  out  to  the  point  of  starvation, 
but  this  is  because  they  have  got  themselves  into  a  sit- 
uation where  they  can  not  gracefully  or  with  self-respect 
back  down,  whereas  a  decision  of  a  properly  constituted 
tribunal  would  help  them  out  of  this  dilemma. 

It  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that,  at  present,  pub- 
lic sentiment  is  frequently  with  the  strikers,  and  it  is 
tlie  force  of  this  in  many  cases  which  prevents  them 
from  going  to  work;  whereas,  in  a  case  where  they 
refused  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  a  properly  consti- 
tuted tribunal,  public  sentiment  would  be  against  the 
strikers,  and  this  alone  would  operate  powerfully  to 
dissolve  the  strike. 


1 6  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

Again,  in  nearly  all  cases,  many  of  the  men  who  first 
stop  work  are  opposed  to  a  strike,  and  are  only  deter- 
red from  resuming  by  the  fear  of  being  expelled  from 
their  union,  in  which  they  are  interested  in  insurance 
funds,  benevolent  funds,  etc.;  and  if  the  law  were  to 
protect  them  against  expulsion,  where  no  other  ground 
existed  than  their  compliance  with  the  award  of  the 
board,  they  would  go  to  work  at  once. 

Further,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  nearly  all  labor 
troubles  in  the  past,  it  was  the  laboring  men  who  were 
the  most  willing  to  submit  to  arbitration,  and  I 
believe  there  is  not  a  case  of  this  kind  on  record  in 
which  an  arbitration  was  fairly  entered  into  that  the 
award  was  not  promptly  accepted  by  the  men.  It  may, 
therefore,  be  safely  assumed  that  if  this  board  were  so 
constituted  as  to  command  the  confidence  of  employes 
in  regard  to  its  integrity  and  fairness,  there  would  never 
be  any  trouble  about  enforcing  its  awards  against  them. 
Should  experience,  however,  demonstrate  that  some- 
thing more  was  necessary  to  insure  compliance  with  the 
award  of  the  board,  by  either  employer  or  employes,  it 
might  be  provided  that  if  an  employer  refused  to  carry 
out  the  award,  he  should  forfeit  say  six  days'  wages  to 
each  of  his  employes;  or  if  the  employes  refuse  to  abide 
by  an  award,  they  shall  forfeit,  say  six  days'  wages  to  the 
employer.  Of  course,  to  make  this  provision  enforce- 
able against  the  men,  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  em- 
ployer always  to  be  six  days  in  arrears  in  paying  them. 
But  this  is  the  case  now  with  most  large  employers, 
especially  railroad  corporations,  and  in  the  case  sup- 
posed it  would  further  have  to  be  provided  tliat  during 


ARBITRATION  OF  STRIKES.  I? 

a  strike  no  judgment  should  be  rendered  in  favor  of  an 
employe  for  such  specified  arrearage. 

The  board  should  further  have  power  to  inquire 
into  a  case  where  the  employer  has  discharged  all  the 
striking  employes  and  is  filling  their  places  with  others; 
for  it  is  the  bringing  on  of  others,  and  thus  increasing  the 
population  of  that  locality  beyond  the  means  there  pro- 
vided for  earning  a  living,  that  vitally  interests  the  pub- 
lic. It  is  at  present  a  matter  of  common  occurrence 
that  men  are  hired  and  taken  from  one  end  of  the 
^  country  to  another,  to  fill  the  places  of  striking  em- 
ployes, when,  but  for  such  bringing,  they  would  never 
have  thought  of  going  to  the  points  where  they  thus 
swell  the  population. 

But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  if  a  law  for  compulsatory 
arbitration  were  passed  there  would  not  only  be  very 
few  arbitrations  under  it,  but  there  would  be  very  few 
strikes.  For  the  consciousness  that  arbitration  can  be 
forced  upon  them  would  induce  both  employer  and 
employe  to  get  together  and  to  try  to  adjust  their  own 
differences,  and  this  nearly  always  results  in  a  settle- 
ment, the  difficulty  at  present  being  that  many  employ- 
ers will  not  talk  with  or  meet  their  men. 

Consequently,  the  employer  does  not  understand  the 
men  nor  the  men  the  employer,  and  thus  trifles  fre- 
quently lead  to  trouble,  when,  with  a  better  understand- 
ing, they  would  be  unnoticed;  so  that  any  measure 
which  will  make  tl:e  relations  between  employer  and 
employe  more  familiar  will  be  productive  of  much  good. 

Even  a  board  which  had  full  power  to  make  a  thor- 
ough investigation  without  the  consent  of  the  parties, 


1 8  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

but  had  no  power  at  all  to  enforce  its  award,  would 
prevent  a  great  deal  of  trouble;  for  the  consciousness 
that  a  full  investigation  can  be  made  and  the  result 
published  to  the  world,  showing  who  is  in  the  wrong, 
will  alone  lead  to  an  effort  at  adjustment. 

BOARD — MOW   CREATED. 

It  is  apparent  that  the  method  of  creating  this  board 
is  of  the  greatest  importance,  and  that  both  employers 
and  employes  must  be  given  a  voice,  if  they  desire,  in 
selecting  the  board  in  each  case.  For,  if  the  board  were 
to  be  constituted  by  the  usual  political  agencies,  or  if 
there  were  to  be  one  permanent  board,  it  would  not 
command  the  absolute  confidence  of  the  parties,  and 
would  soon  be  regarded  as  many  of  our  courts,  whether 
rightfully  or  wrongfully,  are  now  regarded,  /.  e.,  with 
more  or  less  distrust.  Therefore,  in  each  case  where 
there  is  dissatisfaction,  or  a  dispute  liable  to  result  in  a 
strike,  a  separate  board  should  be  created  by  the  em- 
ployes selecting  one  member,  the  employer  one  member, 
and  the  two  thus  selected  agreeing  upon  the  third.  This 
is  the  practice  now  in  vogue  in  nearly  all  cases  of  this 
character  wherein  arbitration  is  now  resorted  to. 

There  should  be  a  provision  authorizing  some  court, 
on  application  of  either  employer  or  a  fixed  proportion 
of  the  whole  number  of  employes,  or  in  case  of  an  actual 
strike,  where  neither  employer  nor  employes  apply,  on 
application  of  a  specified  number  of  citizens,  to  select 
such  member  of  the  board  for  any  party  to  the  dispute 
that  declines  to  select  his  own.  But  this  should  not  be 
done  until  after  notice  is  given  to  either  the  employer 


ARBITRATION    OF   STRIK'ES.  tg 

or  a  named  proportion  of  the  employes,  as  the  case  may 
be.  This  would  place  it  within  the  power  of  either 
party,  as  well  as  the  public,  to  secure  a  prompt  settle- 
ment of  all  disputes  in  reference  to  the  rate  of  wages, 
etc.  As  the  authority  of  the  State  to  interfere  is  based 
chiefly  on  its  duty  to  prevent  public  inconvenience  and 
social  disturbances,  as  well  as  to  prevent  increase  of 
public  burdens,  this  board  could  not  take  cognizance  of 
cases  where  there  are  but  few  employes.  The  line  hav- 
ing to  be  drawn  somewhere,  the  minimum  might  be 
"fixed  at,  say  ten.  The  rules  of  procedure  by  the  board 
are  matters  of  detail  which  present  no  insurmountable 
difficulties. 

BOARD    OF    APPEALS. 

As  a  board  of  appeals  would  necessarily  be  distant 
from  the  scene  of  the  trouble  in  most  cases,  and  a  hear- 
ing before  it  accompanied  with  much  expense  and  cause 
much  delay,  which  delay  alone  would  tend  to  destroy 
all  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  arbitration,  and  per- 
haps bring  tlie  whole  system  into  disrepute,  I  believe  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  create  such  a  board;  for  one  of 
the  strongest  arguments  in  favor  of  arbitration  is,  that 
there  can  be  a  speedy  adjustment  of  difficulties.  Besides, 
only  the  strong  could  avail  themselves  of  the  services  of 
a  board  of  appeals.  Should  such  a  board,  however,  be 
created,  then  there  should  be  a  provision  requiring  the 
decision  of  the  local  board  to  be  accepted  and  carried 
out,  until  it  is  reversed  or  modified  by  the  board  of 
appeals;  otherwise,  every  party  dissatisfied  with  the  find- 
ing of  the  local  board  would  appeal  merely  to  get  delay, 
and  it  would  not  be  long  until  the  whole  system  would 


20  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

not  only  be  rendered  abortive,  but  be  brought  into  dis- 
repute. 

COSTS. 

The  costs  of  an  arbitration  should  be  taxed  very 
much  as  they  are  now  in  law-suits.  At  present  the  pub- 
lic pays  the  judge,  the  jurors,  and  furnishes  a  court- 
house, and  requires  the  parties  to  pay  the  witnesses, 
the  sheriff  and  the  clerk.  As  the  public  is  just  as 
much  interested  in  the  settlement  of  disputes  between 
employer  and  employed  as  it  is  in  the  average  law-suit, 
it  should  bear  at  least  the  same  proportion  of  costs. 
The  arbitrators,  in  particular,  should  be  paid  by  the 
public,  so  that  they  may  never  be  suspected  of  consider- 
ing the  certainty  of  getting  their  fees  in  rendering  a 
decision.  Provision  might  be  made  requiring  a  bond 
for  costs  to  be  given  by  the  party  applying  for  an  arbi- 
tration, and  the  board  should  have  power  to  apportion 
costs  in  proper  cases. 

Upon  the  question  of  arbitration  there  has  until 
recently  been  a  wide  divergence  of  opinion  between 
employer  and  employes.  The  public,  it  may  be  noted, 
nearly  always  favors  arbitration  without  stopping  to 
inquire  carefully  into  the  matter.  As  a  rule,  employes 
favor  arbitration,  but  until  recently  employers  have 
generally  been  opposed  to  any  outside  interference.  But 
a  great  change  has  already  taken  place  in  this  regard  in 
the  minds  of  employers,  and  many  of  them  are  now 
advocating  compulsory  arbitration.  Not  that  they  like 
to  have  the  State  step  in  between  them  and  their 
men,  but  because  this  is  the  only  way  in  which  they 
can  be  protected  from  the  consequences  of  strikes  on 


ARBITRATION-  OF  STRIKES.  21 

the  part  of  their  neighbor's  employes.  At  present, 
many  strikes  force  the  shutting  down  on  the  part 
of  employers  who  have  no  trouble  with  their  men, 
and  cause  thousands  of  men  to  quit  work  who  have 
no  complaint  against  their  employers  ;  the  only  way 
in  which  these  troubles  can  be  limited  to  the  origi- 
nal parties  to  the  quarrel  is  to  provide  for  creating  in 
each  case  a  board  of  arbitration,  with  full  power  to 
inquire  into  the  trouble,  whether  the  parties  consent  or 
not. 

As  already  stated,  the  public,  which  is  always  inter- 
ested and  frequently  a  direct  sufferer,  favors  arbitration. 
As  a  rule  employes  favor  it,  and  employers  are  begin- 
ning to  see  that  it  is  to  the  interest  of  every  employer 
who  has  no  trouble  with  his  men  to  have  such  a  board, 
for  Tie  can  then  seldom  be  made  to  suffer  because  of  the 
wrong-doing  of  some  other  employers,  or  of  the  folly  of 
other  employes.  We  may,  therefore,  reasonably  expect 
soon  to  see  laws  enacted  creating  boards  of  arbitration 
similar  in  character  to  those  that  we  have  been  consid- 
ering. 

John  P,  Altgeld. 
Chicago,  April  26,  1886. 


LIVE  QUESTIONS. 


PENSIONS  FOR  SOLDIERS. 

\_PiihUslicJ  in  the  Comrade,  at  Chic  ago. ^ 

A  Review  of  the  Relationship  Existing  Between 
THE  Ex-Union  Soldier  and  the  Government. — 
How  Pensions  Are  Earned  and  the  Way  They 
Should  Be  Adjusted  and  Paid. 

Editor  of  The  Comrade: 

Sir:  Your  note  asking:  "What  does  the  Govern- 
ment owe  its  soldiers  of  the  late  war,  and  have  they 
any  claims  that  should  be  settled  in  dollars  and  cents? 
If  so,  how?"  is  at  hand.  As  you  wish  me  to  give  reas- 
ons for  any  opinion  I  may  express,  I  submit  the  follow- 
ing as  the  result  of  such  reflection  as  I  have  been  able, 
amid  the  press  of  other  business,  to  give  the  subject. 

In  considering  this  question  we  must  regard  the 
Government  as  being  the  American  People,  so  that  the 
question  is:  "What  do  the  American  People  owe  the 
Union  soldiers  of  the  late  war,  and  have  the  soldiers  a 
claim  against  the  people  that  can,  or  should  be  settled 
in  dollars  and  cents?'*  And  it  is  only  the  latter  half 
of  this  question,  viz.,  whether  there  is  a  claim  that 
should  be  settled  in  dollars  and  cents  —  about  which 
there  can  be  any  controversy  or  great  difference  of 
opinion.  All  admit  that  the  brave  men  who  imperiled 
(if  they  did  not  all  actually  sacrifice)  their  lives  to  save 
our  institutions,  are  entitled  to  the  affectionate  regard 
and    the  everlasting  gratitude   and    homage   of  a  free 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  23 

people.  But,  can  the  people  discharge  the  whole  claim 
merely  with  gratitude  and  homage  ?  Or,  has  this  claim 
a  dual  character,  being  in  part  for  the  debt  due  to  lofty 
patriotism  and  heroic  devotion — a  debt  which  is  above 
money,  and  can  not  be  estimated  in  dollars — and  being 
in  part  for  actual  loss  of  money  and  material  sacrifices 
made,  which  can  be  estimated  and  liquidated  in  dollars 
and  cents  ? 

One  of  the  bravest  and  most  patriotic  men  who 
fought  through  the  late  war,  in  speaking  on  this  sub- 
'  ject,  said:  "We  stand  on  higher  ground.  There  are 
debts  that  can  not  be  settled  across  the  counter.  The 
most  sacred  obligations  are  those  that  can  never  be 
paid,  and  the  only  partial  compensation  possible  is  a 
return  in  kind.  Of  this  nature  is  the  debt  which  a 
saved  nation  owes  to  its  defenders."  I  have  no  doubt 
that  these  views  are  held  by  many  of  the  soldiers, 
and,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  compensation  or  pay  for 
lofty  patriotism,  devotion  to  country,  or  sturdy  dis- 
charge of  duty,  they  are  clearly  right.  Money  can  not 
pay  for  those.  And,  it  may  be  added,  that  the  willing- 
ness to  leave  family  and  friends  and  rush  to  the  defense 
of  your  country  when  danger  threatens,  without  wait- 
ing to  see  whether  there  can  ever  be  any  compensation 
—  the  readiness  to  imperil  and  even  sacrifice  your  life 
for  a  cause — the  unflinching  discharge  of  duty  however 
hard  —  all  come  within  the  list  of  deeds  that  are  above 
money.  And  it  is  upon  these  that  the  safety  and  perpe- 
tuity of  a  nation  depend.  Whenever  these  virtues 
have  to  be  purchased  in  advance  with  money,  then  the 
end  is  near, 


24  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

To  quote  again  from  the  soldier  referred  to  ;  "  If 
future  citizens  of  this  republic  will  not  come  freely  to 
their  country's  defense  in  the  hour  of  need  except  for 
such  (moneyed)  inducements,  then  efface  from  your 
banners  the  honored  colors  and  emblems  and  let  the 
dollar  of  your  daddies  on  a  golden  ground  be  their 
flag  to  lead  them  to  battle  and  to  deserved  defeat. 
Then  will  this  Republic  go  the  way  of  all  republics, 
and  fall,  from  sheer  inability  to  stand  up  longer  in  its 
own  rottenness." 

This  is  strong  language,  and  every  syllable  of  it  is 
true  when  applied  to  the  purchase  of  patriotism.  But 
it  does  not  cover  the  whole  case.  A  patriot  may  make 
material  sacrifices  which  can  be,  should  be,  and  are  paid 
for  in  dollars  arxd  cents.  If  the  Government  takes  a 
man's  property,  nobody  questions  for  a  moment  his 
right  to  compensation.  Can  not  a  man's  time  be  placed 
on  the  same  footing  with  property  ?  Some  rely  on 
property  for  their  support  —  others  rely  on  their  time — 
if  then  the  latter  is  taken,  why  should  there  not  be  com- 
pensation ?  Suppose  the  man  enters  the  army  and  serves 
through  the  war  without  receiving  any  compensation, 
w^ould  he  not  be  entitled  to  pay  in  dollars  and  cents 
for  his  time?  And  if  the  Government  paid  him  for 
this,  could  it  be  claimed  that  it  was  paying  him  for  his 
patriotism  ?  Clearly  not.  It  would  only  be  settling  the 
money  part  of  the  claim.  The  debt  properly  charge- 
able to  patriotism  would  remain  unpaid.  So  if  he  had 
been  paid  half  what  his  time  w^as  reasonably  worth, 
there  could  be  no  question  but  in  equity  he  should 
be  paid  the  other  half,  and  if  he  were,  it  would  not  be 
paying  for  patriotism. 


PENSIONS  FOR   SOLDIERS.  25 

Therefore  it  seems  to  me  that  the  question  is:  Has 
the  soldier  made  any  material  sacrifices  of  time,  prop- 
erty or  health,  for  which  he  has  not  been  compensated, 
and  if  he  has,  does  common  justice  require  that  he 
should  be  compensated  ? 

Before  considering  this  in  detail,  I  will  simply  notice: 
Public  Policy. —  It  is  claimed,  and  with  reason,  that 
in  a  country  like  ours,  wherein  no  standing  army  is 
maintained,  and  no  burden  imposed  for  a  permanent 
military  establishment,  and  where  the  government  has 
to  rely  absolutely  on  the  patriotism  of  its  citizens  to 
repel  foreign  invasions  or  suppress  domestic  insurrec- 
tions, public  policy  alone  would  require  a  very  liberal 
and  comprehensive  spirit  in  dealing  with  the  soldier. 
That  if  the  government  were  even  to  be  lavish,  and  go 
beyond  the  strict  requirements  of  justice,  it  would  be, 
from  a  politic  standpoint,  a  good  investment,  because  it 
would  tend  to  insure  a  ready  response  to  any  call  the 
government  may  make  when  in  distress  hereafter,  and 
would  tend  to  stimulate  the  men  while  serving.  It 
would  be  a  sort  of  premium  paid  to  insure  the  safety  of 
our  homes  and  our  institutions  in  the  future.  So  that 
it  would  be  in  accord  with  a  wise  public  policy  for  the 
government  not  only  to  do  simple  justice  to  the  soldier 
—  that  is,  to  pay  him  what  it  morally  owes  him  —  but  to 
go  beyond  this,  and  even  do  more  than  it  is  in  strict 
justice  bound  to  do. 

WHAT,  THEN,  DOES   COMMON    JUSTICE    DEMAND? 

Other  Governments. —  It  is  urged  by  some  that  our 
government  has  already  dealt  more  liberally  with  its  sol- 
diers than  any  other  government  on  earth,  and,  there- 


26  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

fore,  nothing  further  should  be  asked.  Now,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  inquire  whether  this  is  true  or  not,  for  it 
makes  no  difference  what  other  governments  have  done. 
Most  of  the  governments  of  the  world  are  founded  on 
despotic  principles,  and  treat  both  the  lives  and  the 
property  of  the  common  people  as  if  they  existed  only 
to  serve  the  pleasure  or  the  ambition  of  the  rulers.  And 
tlie  soldiers  are  treated  as  so  many  fighting  cattle,  that 
are  left  by  the  roadside  or  in  a  poorhouse  to  die  when 
they  are  no  longer  of  use.  But  that  is  not  the  case  here. 
Our  government  is  said  to  be  of  the  people,  for  them, 
and  by  them;  and  all  the  people  are  supposed  to  have 
an  equal  interest  in  maintaining  it,  and  when  it  is  threat- 
ened with  danger,  it  is  the  common  duty  of  all  to  march 
to  its  defense.  The  burden  rests  on  all,  and  when, 
therefore,  some  go  and  some  do  not,  some  make  sacri- 
fices and  some  do  not,  common  justice  requires  that 
those  that  make  the  sacrifice,  and  thus  save  the  govern- 
ment, should  be  in  some  way  recompensed  or  made 
whole  for  what  they  have  done  over  and  above  what 
their  neighbors  did,  for  inasmuch  as  the  duty  rested 
equally  on  all,  the  burden  should  be  borne  equally  by 
all. 

To  illustrate:  It  is  admitted  that  when  our  institu- 
tions are  threatened,  it  is  the  duty  of  all  lo  assist  in  pro- 
tecting them;  that  all  should  pay  taxes  in  proportion  to 
the  property  they  own,  and  all  should  give  their  time 
and  personal  services  to  the  common  cause.  The  man 
with  property  having  a  double  interest  in  preserving 
the  government  —  i.  c,  to  protect  his  property  and  also 
his  person  and  family  —  must  therefore  both  pay  taxes 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  27 

and  give  his  time  and  personal  service  to  the  govern- 
ment, while  the  man  without  property,  being  interested 
only  in  the  protection  of  himself  and  family,  must  give 
his  time  and  personal  service  only.  Now,  if  all  citizens 
had  an  equal  amount  of  property,  and  all  entered  the 
service  of  the  government,  and  after  a  victorious  war 
all  were  fortunate  enough  to  return  alive  and  in  good 
health,  it  is  clear  none  would  in  common  justice  be 
entitled  to  a  pension  or  extra  pay  because  all  had  contrib- 
uted equally  and  all  had  derived  an  equal  benefit  from  the 
result.  But  if  in  the  case  just  stated  one-tenth  are  slain 
ordie  from  exposure,  and  one-tenth  more  aremaimed  or 
rendered  unable  to  make  a  living  or  carry  on  their  busi- 
ness as  before,  then  inequalities  arise  ;  the  dead  and 
also  the  maimed  have  given  more  than  their  neighbors 
to  the  common  cause.  The  family  of  the  dead  have 
given  up  their  support.  Whether  that  support  consisted 
of  brains  and  muscle  or  of  a  farm  can  make  no  differ- 
ence in  the  scale  of  justice.  It  has  been  given  to  save 
the  country,  and  they  have,  therefore,  given  more  than 
their  neighbors,  and  justice  demands  that  they  be  com- 
pensated for  the  excess  they  have  given.  Likewise  the 
maimed  or  disabled.  They  have  been  deprived  of  their 
ability  to  carry  on  business  or  use  their  limbs  as  before, 
and  to  this  extent  have  given  more  than  their  neighbors, 
and  justice  requires  that  they  should  be  compensated. 

The  government  could  in  each  of  the  cases  given 
above,  institute  an  inquiry  as  it  does  when  it  seeks  to 
take  a  farm — ascertain  the  amount  of  damage  the  indi- 
vidual has  sustained  in  excess  of  his  neighbors,  and  pay 
this  in  a  lump,  or  it  can  provide  for  paying  it  in  install- 


28  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

merits  during  the  life  of  the  part}'  injured  and  call  it  a  . 
pension.  But  in  either  case  it  will  be  simply  making 
compensation  ;  it  will  not  be  giving  away  anything  ;  it 
will  be  simply  doing  justice — for  let  it  be  clearly  under- 
stood that  a  pension  is  not  a  charity  ;  it  is  a  payment 
made  in  consideration  of  services  which  the  government 
acknowledges  having  received. 

Let  us  now  go  farther.  If,  instead  of  every  man 
entering  the  service,  as  we  have  supposed  above,  only 
a  part  go  (as  is  always  the  case),  then  if  they  all  return 
in  as  good  condition  as  they  went,  and  if  while  away 
they  were  paid  wages  equal  to  what  they  could  have 
earned  in  their  respective  callings  had  they  remained  at 
home,  and  they  do  not  have  to  commence  anew  when 
they  come  back,  then  they  have  contributed  no  more 
than  their  neighbors,  and  are  not  entitled  to  any  com- 
pensation except  perhaps  for  the  exposure  and  hard- 
ships endured.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  wages  paid  them 
are  not  equal  to  what  they  could  have  earned  in  their 
respective  callings  had  they  remained  at  home — if  they 
had  to  give  up  business,  and  when  they  returned  had  to 
commence  anew ;  in  short,  if  they  are  in  any  way  worse 
off  after  returning  than  they  would  have  been  had  they 
remained,  or  if  they  endured  inconveniences  which  their 
neighbors  did  not,  then  they  have  given  just  that  much 
in  what  has  money  value,  over  and  above  what  their 
neighbors,  who  did  not  go,  have  given,  and  common  jus- 
tice demands  that  to  that  extent  they  should  receive 
compensation  ;  and  when  they  do,  it  is  not  payment 
for  their  patriotic  deeds,  but  simply  compensation  for 
what  can  and  should  be  adjusted  in  money, 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  29 

What  are  the  Facts?  It  is  true  that  all  men  of  the 
North  did  not  go  into  the  army — some  did  stay  at  home. 
Therefore,  if  those  that  did  go  earned  less  money  while 
away  than  they  would  have  earned  had  they  remained 
at  home,  or  endured  hardships  which  they  otherwise 
would  not  have  endured,  or  if  after  their  return  tiiey 
were  in  any  way  worse  off  than  they  would  have  been 
had  they  remained  at  home,  then,  to  say  nothing  about 
patriotism  in  so  promptly  responding  to  their  country's 
call,  to  that  extent  they  have  contributed  more  than 
their  neighbors,  and  in  justice  and  good  conscience  are 
entitled  to  compensation. 

I  think  it  will  have  to  be  admitted  in  all  quarters 
that  those  that  entered  the  army  (I  speak  of  the  privates) 
were  not  paid,  as  a  rule,  what  they  could  have  earned  at 
home — that  they  endured  hardships  which  they  would 
not  have  had  at  home — and  that  they  returned  farworse 
off  than  they  would  have  been  had  they  remained  at 
home.  I  am  speaking  now  only  from  a  financial  stand- 
point, assuming  that  they  all  returned  healthy  and 
sound. 

Thirteen  and  sixteen  dollars  per  month  and  finding 
were  the  wages  paid  to  the  privates  in  the  late  war. 
This  was,  if  anything,  less  than  was  paid  to  common 
farm-hands  at  the  same  time,  so  that  those  that  could 
perform  only  the  commonest  kind  of  labor  could  earn 
more  by  staying  at  home  than  by  serving  their  country, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  privations  and  hardships  which 
the  soldiers  had  to  endure.  Even  if  the  wages  paid 
had  been  equal  to  that  paid  for  common  labor  at  the 
time,  then,  to  the  extent  that  the  soldier  suffered  priva- 


30  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

tions  and  endured  hardships,  has  he  contributed  more 
to  his  country's  defense  than  the  mim  wlio  stayed  at 
home?  If  this  is  true  of  the  common  laborer  who  served, 
it  follows  that  every  mechanic  or  skilled  man  of  any 
kind  who  entered  the  army  as  a  private  could  have 
earned  from  two  to  four  times  as  much  by  staying  at 
home,  and  the  difference  between  what  he  was  actually 
paid  and  what  he  would  have  earned  had  he  stayed — 
added  to  the  privations,  exposure  and  hardships  of  a 
soldier's  life — constitute  what  he  has  contributed  of 
that  which  can  be  estimated  in  money  to  defend  the 
country  over  and  above  what  those  gave  that  stayed  at 
home.  So  the  man  who  gave  up  a  business  or  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  money  and  served  in  the  army  has — if 
the  business  or  the  opportunity  was  worth  more  than 
the  wages  actually  paid  him — contributed  the  difference 
to  save  his  country.  That  is,  he  has  contributed  that 
much  more  from  a  money  standpoint,  than  the  man  who 
stayed  at  home. 

Taxes  paid. — It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  the  man  who 
stayed  at  home  paid  taxes,  because  the  soldier,  if  he  had 
any  property,  had  to  pay  taxes  just  the  same.  Besides, 
as  heretofore  stated,  the  man  with  property  had  a  double 
interest  in  saving  the  country — one  on  account  of  him- 
self and  family,  and  the  other  to  save  the  value  of  his 
property.  In  fact,  the  latter  may  in  some  cases  have 
been  the  greater,  because,  while  the  destruction  of  the 
government  might  not  effect  him  personally,  it  might 
destroy  the  value  of  his  property. 

Therefore,  taxes  paid  by  those  not  entering  the  army 
must  be   considered  as  being  simply  the  contributions 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  31 

which  property  makes  to  save  the  government,  and  thus 
to  save  itself.  And  as  long  as  taxes  are  paid  only  on 
property,  they  are  in  no  sense  a  substitute  for  personal 
service  in  the  army,  and  their  payment  can  not  in  any 
way  discharge  the  obligation  that  the  man  who  pays 
them  is  under  to  serve  personally  in  the  army  the  same 
as  every  other  citizen. 

It  may  be  said  that  it  was  necessary  that  some  should 
stay  at  home  and  carry  on  the  industries  of  the  country, 
and  that  when  doing  so  they  were  serving  their  country 
xjust  as  effectually  as  if  they  were  in  the  field.  This  is 
only  in  part  true.  True  if  he  who  stayed  at  home  could 
make  no  moreat  home  than  in  the  field,  and  if  the  danger 
and  hardship  were  equal  in  both  cases,  then  it  is  clear 
that  the  man  who  served  in  the  field  contributed  no 
more  to  save  the  country  than  the  man  who  stayed  at 
home.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  by  staying  at  home  he  can 
make  more  money  than  by  taking  the  field — if,  in  fact, 
he  sells  his  products,  whatever  they  are,  to  the  very  gov- 
ernment which  is  in  danger  at  the  highest  price  he  can 
possibly  obtain,  so  that  in  fact  he  gives  the  government 
nothing  directly;  and  if  the  danger  and  the  hardship 
at  home  are  not  equal  to  those  in  the  field,  then  it  is  clear 
that  the  man  in  the  field  contributes  more  than  the  man 
at  home,  and  it  is  equally  clear  that  whatever  the  excess 
maybe,  common  justice  requires  that  he  should  be  com- 
pensated for  it. 

The  question  is  not  whether  it  is  necessary  that  some 
shall  remain  at  home.  The  question  is,  has  one  contrib- 
uted more  to  save  the  country  than  the  other;  and  if  yea, 
then,  inasmuch  as  it  is  admitted  that  all  should  contribute 


-2  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

equally,  does  justice  demand  that  compensation  be 
made  to  him  who  contributed  the  excess;  that  is,  the 
excess  of  what  can  be  estimated  in  money.  Patriotism, 
courage,  devotion  to  duty,  prompt  response  to  the  call 
of  one's  country,  and  the  willingness  to  take  the  risk  of 
losing  life  should  be  regarded  as  being  above  money 
value  and  to  be  compensated  for  only  by  the  gratitude 
of  one's  country. 

Health. — I  have  thus  far  assumed  that  all  that  re- 
turned from  the  war  were  as  sound  physically  as  they 
would  have  been  had  they  stayed  at  home,  and  we  have 
found  that  even  if  this  were  so  the  soldier  contributed 
more  than  the  man  who  did  not  go  into  the  army,  and 
that  this  excess  had  an  actual  moneyed  value.  But  it  is 
a  well-established  fact  that  comparatively  few  returned 
from  the  army  sound  men.  In  most  cases  where  they 
were  apparently  well,  exposure  had  sown  the  seeds  of 
disease  which  sometimes  did  not  develop  for  years,  but 
w^hich  did  finally  develop,  and  not  only  cause  them  suf- 
fering, but  also  greatly  cripple  their  ability  to  do  busi- 
ness or  make  a  living,  and  consequently  they  have  to 
be  regarded  very  much  as  if  they  had  actually  been 
maimed  on  the  field.  Yet  they  can  not  now  furnish  suf- 
ficient evidence  to  get  a  pension  under  our  laws.  So 
that  no  matter  from  what  standpoint  the  subject  is  con- 
sidered, it  soon  becomes  apparent  that  the  soldier  con- 
tributed more  to  save  the  country  than  the  citizen,  and 
is  entitled  to  compensation.  How  then  shall  this  be 
paid?  In  a  lump  or  in  installments  by  way  of  pensions? 
Here  practical  difficulties  arise.  To  determine  the  exact 
amount  due  each  soldier  is  impracticable;  even  if  it  were 


PEiVSIOXS  FOR   SOLDIERS.  ZZ 

not,  the  total  would  be  so  large,  that  the  treasury  could 
not  meet  it,  so  that  whatever  is  paid  must  be  paid  in 
installments  in  the  shape  of  pensions.  But  how?  On 
what  basis?  These  are  difficult  questions.  No  plan  that 
will  do  exact  justice  can  be  devised.  All  that  is  possible 
is  to  approximate.  Several  systems  are  advocated 
which  I  will  consider. 

Service  Pensions. — By  this  term  I  understand  to  be 

meant  a  pension  for  service  rendered,  as  distinguished 

from  simple  enlistment,  the  idea  being  to  pay  for  serv- 

Mces  performed   or  sacrifices  made,  and  to   pay  nothing 

where  no  service  was  rendered  or  no  sacrifice  made. 

Of  course  there  will  be  difficulty  in  drawing  the  line, 
but  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  principle  involved. 
Bear  in  mind  that  a  pension  is  not  a  charity  nor  a  gift; 
it  is  simply  a  payment  in  discharge  of  a  debt  which, 
instead  of  being  paid  in  a  lump,  is  paid  in  installments. 
And  the  principle  involved  here  is  simply  one  of  making 
compensation. 

We  have  seen  that,  in  common  justice  the  soldier  is 
entitled  to  compensation  for  what  he  contributed  over 
and  above  what  his  neighbor  contributed.  Now,  how 
shall  this  be  ascertained  and  paid  ?  If  it  had  been 
practicable  to  do  so,  and  if  it  had  been  insisted  on, 
justice  might  have  required  the  government  to  institute 
a  separate  inquiry  in  each  case,  and  if  anything  was 
found  to  be  equitably  due,  to  pay  it.  But  owing  to  the 
great  number  this  was  not  practicable.  Whatever  the 
cause,  it  has  not  been  insisted  on.  Now,  one  way  of  adjust- 
ing a  claim  is  to  confer  with  the  claimant,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, arrive  at  an  agreement.     The  claimants  in  this  case 


34  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

are  the  men  who  served  in  the  war,  and  if  they  are  will- 
ing to  accept  compensation  in  installments  instead  of  in 
a  lump,  and  the  government  recognizes  the  justice  of 
their  claims,  that  is  certainly  the  easiest  way  of  arrang- 
ing it.  But  a  pension  made  uniform  for  a  certain  length 
of  service  would  not  do  justice,  because  it  would  hardly 
ever  be  the  case  that  any  two  men  had  made  precisely 
equal  sacrifices  in  order  to  serve  in  the  army.  To  meet 
this  objection  the  advocates  of  a  service  pension  propose 
a  graduated  scale,  giving  to  tjie  man  who  served  only 
three  months  a  small  sum,  to  the  man  who  served  a  year 
a  larger  amount,  and  to  the  man  who  served  three  years 
or  more  a  still  larger  sum — payment  to  begin  when  the 
soldier  reaches  the  age  of  say  fifty-five  years.  This  plan, 
it  is  claimed,  would  lighten  the  burden  on  the  treasury, 
as  only  about  one-fourth  of  the  living  soldiers  would 
begin  to  draw  pensions  at  once,  and  then  these  would 
begin  to  die  off  as  new  ones  are  added.  This  plan 
recognizes  the  impossibility  of  devising  any  way  to  do 
exact  justice;  it  does  not  even  try  to  approximate  it, 
but  seems  primarily  to  aim  at  making  provisions  for  the 
old  age  of  the  soldier,  a.nA  in  this  view  strikes  me  favor- 
ably. It  is  free  from  the  objection  urged  against  indi- 
gent pensions,  for  to  obtain  the  latter  the  soldier  must 
almost  proclaim  himself  a  pauper,  and,  as  the  brave  are 
usually  sensitive,  they  should  not  be  subjected  to  this 
humiliation.  Upon  the  whole,  this  plan,  as  thus  limited, 
seems  reasonable  and  moderate,  and  if  the  soldiers  are 
satisfied  therewith  the  government  should  be.  The  gov- 
ernment has  at  different  times  placed  all  the  survivors 
of  former  wars  on  the  pension  list;  it  is  true  it  usually 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  35 

waited  until  they  were  nearly  all  dead.  But  still  it  recog- 
nized the  principle  that  the  government  should  care  for 
the  old  soldiers,  and,  if  the  principle  is  right,  then  I  say 
the  government  should  not  wait  until  most  are  dead,  but 
should  extend  its    hand    the  moment  they  arrive  at  a 

specified  age. 

Objections. — It  is  objected  in  some  quarters  that  to 
allow  a  service  pension  would  make  enormous  demands 
on  the  treasury,  and  to  that  extent  would  increase  the 
burdens  of  the  people.  But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  question.  If  these  men  have  just  claims  against  the 
government,  and  that  government  is  able  to  pay  them, 
then  justice  demands  that  they  be  paid,  whether  it  take 
a  large  or  a  small  sum  out  of  the  treasury. 

Who  are  the  Objectors? — It  is  a  curious  fact  that  this 
objection  is  urged  most  strongly  by  men  many  of  whom 
have  made  fortunes  out  of  the,government.  It  is  urged 
by  what  are  commonly  called  "  Wall  street  influences" 
— by  men  who,  when  the  government  was  in  the  great- 
est distress,  would  not  enter  the  service  themselves  or 
render  patriotic  assistance,  but  bought  the  government 
bonds  at  sixty  cents  on  the  dollar  and  then  were  paid 
interest  on  the  full  face  of  the  bonds,  and  at  their  ma- 
turity insisted  on  having  the  face  of  the  bonds  paid  in 
gold,  which  at  that  time  was  worth  a  premium,  so  that 
they  were  paid  nearly  two  dollars  (besides  interest)  for 
every  dollar  they  advanced  the  government.  They  gave 
their  country  very  much  the  same  kind  of  assistance 
that  a  pawnbroker  gives  a  poor  man  that  has  met  with 
an  accident — cautiously  makes  some  advances,  takes 
the  best  security  he  can  get,  and  then  tries  to  get  two 
dollars  for  every  one  he  advanced. 


36  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

One  might  suppose  that  after  having  reaped  their 
harvest  they  would  be  satisfied.  But  not  so.  For  now, 
when  it  is  proposed  that  the  government  shall  do  sim- 
ple justice  to  those  that  left  their  business  and  their 
homes,  and  risked  their  lives  to  save  the  government, 
and  prevent  even  the  very  bonds  of  which  we  have 
spoken  from  becoming  worthless,  these  Wall  street  in- 
fluences are  exerted  against  the  ex-soldiers. 

There  are  people  who  imagine  that  brains  and  mus- 
cle and  human  life  should  at  least  be  placed  on  as  high 
a  plane  as  money;  that  if  the  man  who  loaned  the  gov- 
ernment money  to  carry  on  the  war  is  paid  nearly  two 
dollars  for  every  dollar  loaned,  then  the  man  who  gives 
up  his  business  and  his  home,  and  risks  his  life  and 
endures  the  hardships  of  war,  should  be  recompensed 
in  the  same  liberal  manner  for  the  sacrifices  he  has 
made. 

But  the  ex-soldiers  do  not  go  this  far  in  their  de- 
mands. They  do  not  ask  for  double  compensation; 
they  ask  only  that  the  government  which  was  saved 
through  their  efforts,  and  which  is  now  great  and  pow- 
erful, shall  make  them  whole — simply  recompense  them 
for  the  sacrifice  they  have  made — and  will  feel  grateful 
if  they  are  but  made  whole. 

The  People. — The  masses  of  the  people  are  not  ad- 
verse to  dealing  justly  and  even  liberally  with  the  ex- 
Union  soldiers.  They  can  always  be  relied  on  to  sup- 
port an  honorable  and  a  liberal  policy.  When  after  the 
war  it  was  urged  by  many  that  some  of  the  bonds  of 
the  government  should  not  be  paid  in  gold  because  they 
did  not  call  for  it  on  their  face,  and  had  not  been  paid 


PENSIOiVS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  37 

for  in  gold,  the  masses  sustained  the  government  in 
paying  gold,  not  only  because  it  was  thought  that  the 
honor  of  the  government  was  in  some  way  involved,  but 
because  a  wise  and  far-seeing  public  policy  required 
that  the  government  should  deal  liberally  with  its  cred- 
itors, and  this  same  public  can  be  relied  on  to  favor  not 
only  a  just  but  a  liberal  policy  toward  the  ex-soldiers. 
Frauds. — No  doubt  it  is  true  that  great  frauds  have 
been  perpetrated  on  the  pension  department,  and  that 
many  are  getting  pensions  that  should  not,  but  will  any- 
^  body  claim  that  therefore  those  that  in  justice  are  en- 
titled to  a  pension  should  be  kept  out  of  it? 

Private  Pensions. — I  must  admit  that  I  favor  general 
rather  than  special  or  private  pensions,  I  believe  in  put- 
ting all  belonging  to  the  same  class  on  an  equal  footing. 
Private  pensions  are  invidious  and  undemocratic.  They 
are  only  for  a  fortunate  or  a  favored  few.  Only  those 
that  have  influence  with  some  Congressman  or  "have 
a  friend  at  court"  can  hope  to  get  a  private  pension, 
and  these  are  not  always  the  most  worthy.  A  very 
large  number  of  special  or  private  pension  acts  has  been 
passed  at  every  session  of  Congress  for  a  great  many 
years  on  the  ground  that  the  general  laws  were  so 
framed  and  construed  that  many  worthy  and  invalid 
soldiers  who  deserved  a  pension  could  not  prove 
their  claims  under  them  so  as  to  have  a  pension  allowed. 
Now  this,  should  be  otherwise.  The  pension  laws 
should  be  so  framed,  construed  and  executed  that 
every  soldier  who  has  any  just  claim  to  a  pension  can 
readily  get  it  under  a  general  law,  and  not  be  required 
to  secure  a  special  act  of  Congress  before  he  can  get 
what  he  is  justly  entitled  to. 


■38  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

Gen.  Oliver  Edwards,  of  Warsaw,  111.,  hit  the  mark 
when  he  said:  "  I  believe  private  pension  bills,  as  a  rule, 
are  an  injustice  te  most  of  us,  on  the  ground  that  very 
few  old  soldiers  have  sufficient  political  influence  to 
secure  a  private  pension." 

Indigent  Soldiers  Pension.  —  Careful  inquiry  has  re- 
cently brought  out  the  fact  that  there  are  at  present 
upwards  of  ten  thousand  ex-Union  soldiers  in  the  vari- 
ous alms  or  poor-houses  of  the  United  States;  at  times 
their  number  has  reached  nearly  twenty  thousand. 
How  many  soldiers  have  already  died  there  and  been 
buried  in  the  potters'  field,  is  not  known,  but  as  the 
average  death-rate  in  alms-houses  is  from  ten  to  fifteen 
per  cent,  a  year,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  every  year  for  a 
number  of  years  over  one  thousand  of  the  old  Union  sol- 
diers have  died  amid  the  squalor  of  the  poor-house, 
away  from  friend  and  family,  and  been  buried  in  the 
field  set  apart  for  strangers.  But  the  ten  thousand  rep- 
resents but  a  small  portion  of  the  indigents,  because 
only  a  small  portion  of  the  poor  of  any  class  actually 
enter  the  alms-house.  Usually  friends  intervene  and 
support  them.  So  that  it  is,  perhaps,  wuthin  bounds  to 
say  that  for  every  soldier  in  the  poor-house  there  are  at 
least  five  who  are  being  supported  as  objects  of  charity 
by  friends.  If  this  is  correct,  then  we  have  the  humili- 
ating spectacle  of  the  most  powerful,  most  wealthy  and 
most  enlightened  government  on  earth,  after  a  vic- 
torious war,  in  which  its  very  existence  was  at  stake, 
allowing  upwards  of  fifty  thousand  of  the  men  who  res- 
cued it  from  destruction  to  be  supported  by  private 
charity;  upwards  of  ten  thousand,  besides  many  thou- 


PENSIONS  FOR    SOLDIERS.  39 

sands  soldiers'  orphans,  to  be  confined  in  the  public 
poor-houses  of  the  land,  and  over  one  thousand  to  be 
buried  every  year  as  paupers.  There  may  be  people 
who  can  view  this  spectacle  with  composure,  but  there 
are  those  who  feel  that  it  is  a  shame  and  a  disgrace. 

It  matters  not  whether  they  are  in  the  poor-house 
because  the  pension  actually  paid  is  so  small  that  it  will 
not  half  support  them,  which  is  the  case  with  some,  or 
whether  they  have  not  been  able,  under  existing  laws,  to 
secure  any  pension,  which  is  true  of  most  of  them.  In 
^either  case  the  great  patriotic  masses  of  the  American 
people  do  not  want  to  see  the  soldiers  who  fought  to 
save  the  Union,  thus,  as  it  were,  left  by  the  roadside  to 
die. 

We  have  seen  that  those  who  actually  served  in  the 
army  have  a  just  claim  against  the  government,  which 
has  not  yet  been  paid.  Then  there  are  thousands  of 
men  who  left  the  army  apparently  well,  but  in  whose 
systems  exposure  had  planted  the  seeds  of  disease, 
which  afterward  slowly  developed,  so  that  they  could 
not  make  a  living,  and  yet,  under  the  strict  proof 
required  by  our  existing  laws,  which  practically  require 
the  applicant  to  prove  his  claim  beyond  a  doubt,  they 
are  unable  to  satisfy  the  pension  office,  and  so  get  noth- 
ing. In  fact,  so  eager  do  some  pension  officials  seem  to 
be  to  defeat  a  pension  when  they  can,  that  in  cases 
where  the  proof  satisfied  the  law  and  showed  the  appli- 
cant to  be  entitled  to  a  pension,  they  have  written  to 
some  postmaster  in  the  locality  where  the  applicant 
resided,  to  see  if  they  could  not  get  some  information 
that  would  defeat  the  pension. 


4°  -  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

We  can  form  some  idea  of  the  large  number  of  men 
who  in  justice  are  entitled  to  pensions,  and  who  have 
been  unable  to  secure  one,  by  considering  the  number 
of  private  pension  bills  annually  passed  by  Congress, 
bearing  in  mind  that  there  is  not  one  private  soldier  in 
a  hundred  who  has  sufficient  influence  to  get  Congress 
to  pass  a  special  bill  in  his  favor.  And  yet  during  the 
first  two  years  of  Cleveland's  administration,  not  only 
did  Congress  pass,  but  President  Cleveland  actually 
approved  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three  bills.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  there  were  a  number  passed  by  Congress 
which  were  vetoed  by  the  President. 

That  these  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three  bills  were 
founded  on  justice  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  they 
received  the  approval  of  the  President,  who  is  not 
charged  with  being  partial  to  private  bills. 

If  we  consider  how  much  time  and  effort  it  requires 
to  get  any  measure  passed  by  Congress  —  how  very  few 
of  the  bills  introduced  ever  are  passed  —  and  that  not 
one  private  soldier  in  a  hundred  has  sufficient  influence 
to  enable  him  to  get  Congress  to  pass  any  measure,  and 
then  reflect  that  during  two  years  Congress  actually 
passed  and  the  President  approved  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-three  private  pension  bills,  we  can  see  that  there 
are  many  thousands  of  poor  soldiers  who  in  justice  are 
entitled  to  a  pension  but  are  unable  to  get  it,  and  who, 
if  they  have  no  other  means  of  support,  must  depend  on 
private  charity  or  else  make  their  bed  in  the  poor- 
house. 

But  if  this  were  not  so  —  if  the  men  who  served  in 
the  army  had  no  just  claim  to  compensation,  and  the 


PENSIONS  FOR   SOLDIERS.  4 1 

indigent  soldier,  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking,  had 
no  just  claim  to  a  pension — would  not  an  enlightened 
and  a  wise  public  policy  require  that  the  government 
see  to  it  that  those  that  imperiled  their  lives  in  order  to 
save  it  from  destruction  should  not,  in  their  old  age, 
have  to  eat  the  bread  of  charity,  draw  their  last  breath 
in  an  alms-house,  or  be  buried  in  a  pauper's  graveyard? 

On  March  18,  181 8,  just  thirty-five  years  after  the 
close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  only  four  years 
after  the  close  of  a  second  exhaustive  war  with  Great 
■Britain,  at  a  time  when  the  country  was  poor  and  had 
not  yet  fully  recovered  from  the  effects  of  the  last  war, 
Congress  passed  a  law  granting  pensions  to  all  that  had 
served  in  the  army  of  the  Revolution  "for  a  period  of 
nine  months  or  longer  at  any  period  of  the  war,  and 
who,  by  reason  of  reduced  circumstances,  shall  stand 
in  need  of  assistance  from  their  country  for  support." 

Here  the  principle  that  the  government  should  assist 
those  that  imperiled  their  lives  for  its  preservation,  and 
that  are  in  need  of  assistance  for  support,  is  distinctly 
recognized  and  acted  on.  Can  any  good  reason  be 
given  why  the  powerful  government  of  1887  should  pur- 
sue a  less  liberal  policy  toward  the  soldiers  than  the 
exhausted  government  of  1818? 

I?ivalid  and  Disabled. — I  have  thus  far  noticed  only 
those  that  do  not  receive  any  pension,  and  will  add  a 
few  words  in  regard  to  those  to  whom  pensions  have 
been  granted.  According  to  the  reports  of  the  pension 
office  the  whole  number  of  people  in  the  United  States 
in  1886  drawing  pensions  was  265,855,  since  that  time 
the  number  has  been  slightly  increased. 


42  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

The  following  table  shows  the  sums  paid  per  month 
for  the  different  kinds  of  injury: 

Total  deafness $13  oo 

Inability  to  perform  manual  labor 30  00 

Loss  of  a  hand  or  foot 30  00 

Total  disability  in  one  hand  and  one  foot 36  00 

Loss  of  one  hand  and  one  foot 36  00 

Amputation  at  or  above  elbow  or  knee 40  00 

Amputation  at  hip  or  shoulder  joint 45  00 

Loss  of  both  hands 72  00 

Loss  of  both  feet 72  00 

Loss  of  both  eyes 72  00 

Need  of  regular  aid  and  attendance 7  2  00 

Widow  and  dependent  relatives 1 2  00 

Child 2  00 

Anchylosis  of  elbow  or  knee  joint 10  00 

Anchylosis  of  ankle  or  wrist 8  00 

Loss  of  the  sight  of  one  eye 8  00 

Total  deafness  of  one  ear 2  00 

Slight  deafness  in  both  ears 4  00 

Severe  deafness  in  both  ears 8  00 

Loss  of  hand  except  thumb 17  00 

Loss  of  thumb 8  00 

Loss  of  index  finger 4  00 

Loss  of  any  other  finger,  without  complication.  . .      2  00 

Loss  of  all  the  toes  of  one  foot 10  00 

Etc.,  the  table  being  long. 

The  following  table  shows  the  number  drawing  the 
different  sums: 

29,247 $  I  00  to  $  2  00  per  month. 

66,42 1 2  00  to       4  00         " 


PENSIONS  FOR   SOLDIERS. 

39,578 $  4  00  to  $  6  00  per  month. 

51,722 6  00  to  8  00  " 

12,992 8  00  to  10  00  " 

19,383 10  00  to  12  00  " 

4,804 12  00  to  14  00  " 

8,878 14  00  to  1600  " 

3,557 i6  00  to  18  00  " 

1,626 18  00  to  20  00  " 

15,963 20  00  to  24  00  " 

9,007 24  00  to  30  00  " 

^   647 30  00  to  40  00  " 

1,046 40  00  to  50  00  " 

983 59  00  to     75  00 

1 100  00         " 

By  glancing  at  these  tables  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
amount  paid  each  pensioner  is  very  small.  Over  one- 
third  of  all  get  from  one  to  four  dollars  per  month_ 
Comparatively  few  get  as  high  as  twelve  dollars  per 
month. 

Anyone  can  see  that  the  pensions  paid  to  disabled 
soldiers  are  in  most  cases  not  only  inadequate  to  their 
support,  but  inadequate  to  make  compensation  for  the 
sacrifice  they  made  over  and  above  that  made  by  their 
neighbors  to  save  the  government.  Take  the  man  who 
through  exposure  has  become  totally  deaf.  Will  any- 
body claim  that  to  pay  him  thirteen  dollars  per  month 
will  be  a  just  compensation? 

Take  the  man  who,  when  he  entered  the  service,  was 
robust.  He  was  then  able  not  only  to  make  a  living 
and  support  a  family,  but  get  something  ahead,  now  he 
is  totally  unable  to  perform  manual  labor.     Can  it  be 


44  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

claimed  Uiat  thirty  dollars  a  month  is  a  just  compensa- 
tion to  him?  So  of  many  of  the  other  sums,  without 
reviewing  them  in  detail.  They  are  inadequate  to  make 
compensation,  and  inadequate  in  many  cases  to  support 
the  pensioner  or  his  children,  so  that  it  is  no  wonder 
our  poor-houses  are  filling  up  with  the  old  soldiers  and 
their  children.  As  already  pointed  out,  it  makes  no 
difference  what  other  governments  do.  We  must  pro- 
ceed on  a  different  principle.  With  us  all  should  con- 
tribute equally  to  the  protection  and  support  of  our 
institutions,  and  when  some  have  to  give  more  than 
others  they  are  justly  entitled  to  compensation  for  the 
excess. 

John  P.  Altgeld. 
Chicago,  January  3,  1888. 


JUSTICE  TO  THE  DEAF  SOLDIER. 

[^Publiihed  in  the  American  Tribune,  at  Indianapolis ,  Dec.  27,  i88g.\ 

November  14,  1889. 

My  Dear  Mr.  Foster: — Your  favor  of  the  25th  ult., 
stating  that  "A  deaf  soldier  has  no  show  to  enter  the 
civil  service,  while  the  amputation  cases  are  found  in 
every  department  at  Washington,"  reached  me  some 
days  ago,  and  confirms  what  my  own  observation  had 
-alrfeady  led  me  to  believe. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  government  of  this  great 
republic  should  discriminate  against  the  deaf  soldier. 
But  there  has  always  been  against  him  a  discrimination 
invidious  and  unjust,  tending  to  create  a  feeling  of  bit- 
terness. Until  about  a  year  ago,  the  pension  paid  to  a 
totally  deaf  soldier  was  only  $13  per  month.  Think  of 
$13  per  month  for  a  man  totally  deaf,  while  at  the  same 
time  those  that  were  disabled  by  reason  of  a  loss  or  dis- 
ability of  limb  or  limbs,  were  paid  from  two  to  three 
times  this  amount,  and  more.  Under  the  law  of  August 
27,  1888,  the  totally  deaf  soldier  is  paid  $30  per  month, 
while  soldiers  suffering  from  other  disabilities  may 
receive  as  high  as  $72  per  month,  the  loss  of  only  one 
arm  or  of  one  leg  entitling  the  pensioner  to  receive 
$36  per  month,  and  yet  experience  has  long  shown  that 
such  a  man  can  get  employment  where  a  totally  deaf 
man  can  not,  and  certainly  in  point  of  suffering  that  of 
the  latter  is  infinitely  greater  than  that  of  the  former. 

The  rules  of  the  civil  service  and  the  practice  there- 
under to  which  you  refer,  simply  show  that  the  same 

(45) 


46  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

condition  of  things  exists  in  the  Federal  service  that  is 
found  in  the  world  outside.  The  deaf  soldier  has  little 
show  of  getting  a  job  in  either.  It  is  fair  to  assume 
that  the  men  who  framed  the  rules,  and  the  men  who 
from  time  to  time  controlled  the  appointments,  were 
honest,  intelligent  and  humane,  and  certainly  as  ready 
to  assist  the  deaf  soldier  as  any  private  employer  would 
be.  And  the  fact  that  the  former  has  had  little  show  in 
securing  or  holding  positions  in  the  Federal  service 
simply  demonstrates  how  unreasonable  it  is  to  expect 
him  to  get  work  from  private  employers,  and  how  unjust 
it  is  to  discriminate  against  him  in  fixing  the  pension  to 
be  paid  him.  No  private  employer  will  from  choice 
select  a  deaf  man.  If  he  employs  him  at  all  it  is  as  a 
matter  of  charity,  and  he  will  keep  him  only  as  long  as 
he  feels  that  charity  requires  him  to.  So,  that  even 
while  doing  the  little  work  which  may  be  given  him,  he 
must  feel  himself  an  object  of  charity;  instead  of  receiv- 
ing a  cold  potato  at  the  kitchen  door,  a  pittance  is 
doled  out  to  him  in  the  shop.  This  is  all  wrong.  Our 
country  should  not  force  such  a  humiliation  on  those  of 
its  defenders  that  were  unfortunate.  The  American 
people  are  liberal,  and,  above  all  things,  want  to  see 
justice  done.  The  difficulty  grows  out  of  the  fact  that 
the  full  extent  of  the  disability  and  suffering  resulting 
from  total  deafness  is  not  at  once  perceived.  When  a 
man  has  lost  a  leg,  or  an  arm,  or  his  eyesight,  the  char- 
acter of  the  affliction  can  be  seen,  and  while  not  fully, 
it  is  still  more  nearly  appreciated.  But  the  deaf  man 
can  walk  and  see,  so  that  at  first  view  he  does  not  seem 
to  be  so  badly  off  as  the  other.     It  is  not  till  afterwards 


JUSTICE    TO    THE  DEAF  SOLDIER.  47 

that  we  discover  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  him  to 
get  anything  to  do.  Particularly  is  this  true  now,  when 
thousands  of  men  who  are  in  possession  of  all  their 
faculties,  find  it  very  difficult  to  earn  a  living,  and 
nobody  but  himself  and  his  God  can  fully  understand 
how  severe  is  the  suffering  that  comes  from  the  utter 
isolation  from  all  mankind  into  which  he  is  forced.  No 
voice  of  wife  or  child  can  gladden  him;  no  spoken  word 
of  friend  can  cheer  him;  as  a  rule  he  must  forever  sit 
down  alone,  and  can  commune  only  with  his  own  sad 
*  thoughts,  and  it  it  seems  to  me  that  the  government 
should  see  to  it  that  these  thoughts  are  not  embittered 
by  the  feeling  that  the  country  which  he  helped  to 
rescue  when  it  was  in  peril,  and  in  whose  service  he  was 
disabled,  now  neglects  him  in  the  days  of  its  greatness 
and  of  his  misery. 

What  is  necessary  is  to  make  the  public  once  under- 
stand the  full  meaning  of  your  affliction.  This  once 
accomplished  you  will  be  fairly  dealt  with.  You  and 
your  comrades  have  already  done  very  much  in  this 
direction,  and  I  hope  soon  to  see  full  justice  done  you. 
With  kind  regards,  I  am        Very  truly  yours, 

John  P.  Altgeld. 
Capt.  Wall.^ce  Foster, 

Indianapolis. 


48  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE  IN 
CHICAGO. 

[Published  in  the  Chicago  Pafets.^ 

Chicago,  February  12,  1889. 
Hon.  Sherwood  Dixon, 

House  of  Representatives,  Springfield. 

Dear  Sir: — In  answer  to  your  letter  asking  my  views 
upon  you  bill,  which  provides  that  the  judges  of  the 
trial  courts  may,  under  certain  conditions,  give  an  oral 
charge  to  a  jury,  permit  me  to  say  that  I  am  not  satis- 
fied with  your  bill,  because  it  does  not  go  far  enough; 
still  it  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  and  I  hope  the 
General  Assembly  will  take  up  the  matter  of  regulating 
the  practice  in  our  courts  and  treat  it  with  that  thor- 
oughness which  its  importance  demands. 

The  main  objections  to  our  system  of  practice  in  the 
common  law  courts,  referring  particularly  to  Cook 
county,  are : 

First.  The  uncertainty  as  to  result  without  regard  to 
the  justice  of  a  cause  brought  about  in  part  by  legisla- 
tion, which  experience  has  shown  to  have  been  unwise,  in 
part  by  requiring  a  unanimous  verdict,  and  in  part  by  the 
fact  that  the  higher  courts  have  embarrassed  and  com- 
plicated the  administration  of  justice  by  what  have  been 
called  **  frivolous  technicalities,"  applied  not  to  the  mer- 
its of  a  cause  but  to  some  question  of  procedure,  so  that 
hundreds  of  cases  are  reversed  and  kept  hanging  in  the 
courts  for  years,  until  the  subject  matter  of  litigation  is 


ADMINISTRA  TION  OF  JUSTICE  IM  CHICAGO.         49 

lost  and  the  parties  are  worn  out  with  expense  and 
worry — not  because  the  case  had  been  wrongly  d-ecided 
in  the  trial  court  upon  the  merits,  but  solely  because 
there  was  a  difference  of  opinion  concerning  some  ques- 
tion of  procedure.  Consequently,  dishonest  men,  with 
no  meritorious  defense,  are  encouraged  to  litigate,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  almost  as  good  a  chance  of  suc- 
cess— at  least  for  several  years — as  those  that  have  an 
honest  case,  and  many  honest  men  with  meritorious 
cases  are  afraid  to  go  into  the  courts  because  they  feel 
^that  they  have  only  a  little  better  chance  there  than  a 
scoundrel. 

Second.  Another  objection  is  that  at  present  a  law- 
suit costs  him  who  loses  but  little,  if  any  more,  than 
he  who  wins;  so,  a  man  without  a  just  cause  of  action 
or  meritorious  defense  can  keep  a  case  in  the  courts  for 
years  and  subject  his  opponent  to  great  expense  and  an- 
noyance without  taking  any  chances.  As  a  result,  many 
suits  are  brought  which  ought  not  to  be,  and  many 
others,  in  which  there  is  no  defense,  are  fought  for  years, 
simply  because  an  unscrupulous  defendant  finds  it  to  his 
advantage  to  fight  rather  than  to  settle.  So  that  many 
meritorious  cases  are  kept  out  of  the  courts,  while  our 
dockets  are  crowded  with  cases,  many  of  which  ought 
not  to  be  there,  and  many  others  of  which  should  be 
speedily  disposed  of. 

Third.  Another  objection  is  unreasonable  delay. 
This  grows  out  of  the  conditions  I  have  just  mentioned, 
and  at  the  same  time  augments  them.  As  a  rule,  it  now 
takes  from  two  to  four  years  to  dispose  of  a  suit  in  our 
common  law  courts,  whereas  it  should  not  take  over 


so  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

forty  days.  At  present,  when  a  man  begins  a  suit,  he 
generally  has  to  wait  nearly  two  years  before  it  comes 
up;  in  the  meantime,  the  situation  of  the  parties  may  have 
changed,  or  the  subject  matter  of  the  suit  become  worth- 
less. Then  he  is  notified  by  his  lawyer  that  his  case  is 
about  to  be  reached  and  that  he  must  prepare  for  trial. 
Thereupon  he  partially  neglects  his  business,  has  con- 
sultations with  his  lawyer  and  looks  around  for  his  wit- 
nesses. In  the  course  of  a  few  days — or  a  few  weeks — 
the  case  is  actually  placed  on  the  call  for  the  following 
day.  Then  he  attends  court  with  his  witnesses  for  from 
two  to  ten  days  at  great  expense  until  the  case  is  reached 
on  the  call,  when  it  is  discovered  that  on  account  of  the 
engagement  of  counsel  on  one  side  or  the  other  in  some 
other  court  the  case  has  to  be  passed  for  a  short  time. 
Then  in  the  course  of  a  week — or  sometimes  of  three  or 
four  weeks — he  gets  his  witnesses  together  again  and 
goes  to  the  court-house  where  he  finds  some  other  case 
on  trial,  and  he  is  told  to  wait.  In  the  course  of  a  day 
or  two  his  case  is  again  reached,  when  the  chances  are 
about  two  to  one  that  it  will  again  have  to  be  passed.  And 
very  frequently,  after  having  neglected  his  business  for 
weeks,  and  having  been  to  great  expense  and  trouble 
in  getting  his  witnesses  and  attending  court,  it  is  found 
that  on  account  of  absent  witnesses  or  some  other  cause 
the  case  must  be  continued,  and  that  it  will  not  be 
reached  again  for  upward  of  a  year,  when  he  will  have  all 
his  work  and  trouble  of  preparation,  etc.,  to  do  over  again. 
If,  however,  the  trial  is  begun,  then  he  is  astonished  to 
find  that  it  is  apparently  not  the  justice  of  his  cause 
which  is  the  main  subject  of  inquiry,  but  that,  instead, 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE   IN  CHICAGO.       51 

it  is  tlie  rules  of  procedure  about  wliicli  great  solicitude 
is  shown.  When  the  evidence  is  all  heard  and  the  law- 
yers have  made  their  arguments,  then  he  learns  that  we 
have  had  legislation  in  this  State  which  changed  the 
practice  as  it  existed  at  common  law  and  still  prevails  in 
the  Federal  courts,  by  which  the  judge  was  to  point  out 
to  the  jury  just  what  the  issues  are  and  state  to  them  the 
law  governing  the  case;  but  that,  instead,  the  judge  can 
not  give  the  jury  any  other  than  written  instruction:^. 
As  a  consequence,  the  jury  is  often  left  with  very  con- 
fused notions  as  to  what  the  issues  of  fact  are;  and,  as 
there  is  usually  not  time  for  a  judge  to  write  out  a  clear 
and  concise  charge  covering  the  whole  case  after  the 
evidence  is  closed,  he  is  frequently  obliged  to  give  a 
number  of  instructions  prepared  by  counsel  for  the 
respective  parties,  and  which  frequently  fail  to  give  to 
the  jury  much  light  or  guidance;  so  that  the  jury  is  lia- 
ble to  either  bring  in  a  verdict  which  is  entirely  wrong 
and  must  be  set  aside,  or  else  to  disagree  and  thus  compel 
the  parties  to  wait  until  the  case  is  again  reached  in  its 
order,  and  then  do  all  this  work  over  again.  As  the  law 
requires  a  unanimous  verdict,  the  suitor  finds  that  if 
there  should  be  a  corrupt  man  on  the  panel — or  a  crank, 
or  a  man  who  felt  offended  at  something  said  by  another 
juror,  he  has  it  in  his  powgr  to  produce  a  miscarriage  of 
justice  without  giving  any  reason.  If,  however,  the 
suitor  safely  runs  all  these  gauntlets  and  secures  a  ver- 
dict which,  after  a  motion  for  a  new  trial  has  been 
argued,  is  left  to  stand,  then  a  judgment  is  entered, 
and  the  defendant  appeals  to  the  appellate  court.  This 
takes  about  one  year  more,  and  occasions  considerable 


52  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

expense  for  lawj'ers'  fees,  printing,  etc.  Then  it  is  found 
that  tlie  appellate  court  reverses  about  forty  per  cent, 
of  all  cases  brought  to  it,  and  sends  them  back  to  be 
tried  over  again;  and  they  are  reversed,  as  a  rule,  not 
on  the  merits — not  because  an  actual  injustice  has  been 
done,  but  a  great  mtijority  of  cases  are  reversed 
because  of  what  has  been  styled  "  some  frivolous  error" 
in  the  procedure.  Frequently  some  point  which  neither 
side  thought  of  or  urged  in  the  court  below  is  made  a 
ground  for  reversal  because,  to  quote  the  language  of 
the  higlier  courts,  "it  may  have  influenced  the  jury;" 
not  that  it  probably  did  influence  the  jury,  or  that  the 
result  should  have  been  different  on  the  evidence. 
So  that  our  suitor  finds  that  two  chances  out  of  five 
are  against  him  in  the  higher  court.  If  his  case  is 
reversed  and  sent  back,  then  he  finds  himself  just  where 
he  was  when  he  started,  and  he  has  had  upward  of 
three  years  of  expense,  trouble  and  worry  for  nothing. 
He  must  do  all  his  work  over  again,  and  it  will  require 
from  two  to  four  more  years  to  get  through  with  it.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  case  is  affirmed  by  the  appellate  court, 
then,  if  the  amount  involved  exceeds  one  thousand  dol- 
lars, an  appeal  is  again  taken  to  the  supreme  court. 
This  involves  another  delay  of  about  a  year  and  the  pay- 
ing of  lawyers'  fees,  printers'  fees,  etc.  Here  again  his 
case  may  be  reversed  and  sent  back,  and  if  it  is,  the 
suitor  finds  himself  just  where  he  started,  and  all  his 
outlays  and  his  worry  have  been  for  nothing.  But,  as 
the  supreme  court  at  present  can  not  review  the  facts, 
but  considers  only  questions  of  law,  the  chances  of  a 
reversal   here   are   not   so   great.     If   the   judgment  is 


4 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE  IN   CHICAGO.      53 

affirmed  so  that  the  lawsuit  is  finally  ended,  then  he 
learns  that  the  other — that  is,  the  losing — side  need  pay 
him  nothing  for  all  the  expense,  delay  and  trouble  to 
which  he  has  been  subjected.  Even  though  his  suit  was 
founded  on  a  promissory  note.  That  is,  a  man  with 
ever  so  honest  a  claim  may  be  kept  in  the  courts  for 
years,  kept  out  of  the  use  of  his  money  and  put  to  great 
expense  and  trouble,  and  the  other  side  need  not  pay 
his  lawyer's  fees — need  not  pay  his  printer's  bills — need 
not  pay  for  the  delay — nor  for  the  trouble  and  annoy- 
ance to  which  he  has  been  subjected. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  many  of  our  business  men 
would  rather  lose  a  claim  entirely  than  to  go  into  court 
with  it  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  many  conscientious 
lawyers  advise  their  clients  to  accept  any  kind  of  a  set- 
tlement rather  than  attempt  to  litigate  ?  Is  it  not  reason- 
ably certain  that  if  the  law  were  to  provide  that  every 
time  a  case  is  decided  on  its  merits  in  any  court  of  record 
the  court  shall  fix  a  reasonable  attorney  fee  to  be  paid 
by  the  losing  party  to  the  winning  party,  it  would  weed 
out  much  of  the  litigation  we  now  have,  and  bring  about 
a  condition  in  which  a  man  having  an  honest  claim 
would  not  feel  that  he  might  as  well  lose  it  all  as  to  go 
into  a  court  of  justice  with  it  ? 

4th.  Still  another  objection  urged  with  much  force 
is  that,  our  present  system  entails  a  heavy  expense  on 
the  public — on  the  non-litigating  people — which  they 
ought  not  to  pay. 

Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  probate  and  the 
county  courts,  which  to  a  certain  extent  are  adminis- 
trative,   there   are    in    Cook   county    eighteen   judges, 


54  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

including  the  superior  and  tlie  circuit  court  judges.  Two 
of  tliese  are  constantly  at  the  criminal  court,  leaving 
sixteen  attending  to  civil  business.  It  is  true  three  of 
these  are  in  the  appellate  court,  but  their  salaries  have 
to  be  charged  to  the  public. 

The  salaries  of  these  sixteen  amount  to $112,000 

The  expense  of  the  clerks'  offices  of  the  supe- 
rior and   circuit  courts  for  a  year  is 69,468 

The  expense  of  sheriff's  office,  chargeable  to 
these  two  courts,  over  and  above  its  earn- 
ings, is 75.000 

The  expense  of  keeping  up  court-house,    and 

chargeable  to  these  two  courts,  is 20,000 

The  jurors'  fees    for  these  two  courts  amount 

to 62,756 

Total $339,124 

The  total  earnings  of   the  superior  and  of  the 

circuit  court  clerks' offices  amount  to....       107,487 

Leaving $231,737 

as  the  sum  which  the  people  of  Gook  county  pay  annually 
for  the  benefit  of  its  litigants.  The  present  fee  to  be  paid 
on  commencing  a  suit  is  $6  ;  and  by  a  defendant  on 
entering  an  appearance  is  $1.50. 

The  total  number  of  suits  brought,  including  appeals 
from  justices,  in  the  superior  and  the  circuit  courts  dur- 
ing the  year  1888,  was  12,380,  as  follows:  3,460  suits 
in  chancery  ;  7,960  suits  at  law  ;  and  2,325  appeals  from 
justices. 

They  were  disposed  of  as  follows:  Judgment  entered 
by  default  or  confessions,  2,759;  3,039  were  dismissed  for 


ADMINISTRATION-  OF  JUSTICE   IN  CHICAGO.      55 

want  of  prosecution,  and  3,407  were  tried.  So  that  there 
were  about  3,000  more  cases  brought  during  the  year 
than  were  disposed  of. 

If  we  take  $339,224,  the  total  expense  to  the  public, 
and  divide  it  by  12,380,  the  total  number  of  suits  brought, 
we  have  $27.40,  the  amount  which  each  suit  should  con- 
tribute in  order  to  defray  the  expense;  or  if  we  divide  by 
9,205,  the  number  of  cases  disposed  of,  we  have  $38.59 
which  each  case  should  contribute. 

But  as  it  would  be  unjust  to  require  a  small  case, 
which  consumes  but  a  few  hours,  to  contribute  as  much 
as  one  taking  up  several  days,  it  would  perhaps  be  bet- 
ter to  repeal  the  statute  which  provides  that  in  Cook 
county  $6  advanced  by  the  plaintiff  and  $1.50  by  the 
defendant  shall  be  in  full  of  all  costs  to  be  paid  to  the 
clerk  of  the  court.  In  that  case  the  clerk  would  collect 
fees  for  everything  that  is  done  and  turn  them  over  to 
the  county  treasurer,  as  is  now  the  practice  through- 
out the  State;  and  it  is  believed  that  this  would  give 
ample  funds  to  cover  the  whole  expense.  It  may  be 
added  that  the  law  limiting  the  fees  to  be  paid  in  Cook 
county  was  passed  at  a  time  when  the  clerks  pocketed 
all  the  fees  paid  and  amassed  vast  fortunes.  It  was 
intended  to  limit  their  income.  But  since  clerks  are 
paid  a  salary  and  are  required  to  pay  all  fees  into  the 
county  treasury,  the  reason  for  the  law  has  ceased  to 
exist.  If,  however,  the  statute  can  not  be  repealed,  then 
I  would  leave  the  fees  as  they  are,  and  suggest  that  the 
clerk  be  required  to  tax  a  fee  of  twenty-five  dollars  per 
day  to  be  paid  to  the  county  for  each  day  or  fraction  of  a 
day  consumed  at  the  trial — this  to  be  paid  by  the  lo^^ 
ing  side,  unless  otherwise  ordered  by  the  court, 


56  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

Referring  again  to  the  expense  of  keeping  up  our 
system  of  jurisprudence  in  proportion  to  results  attained, 
I  will  add  that  the  total  amount  of  monied  judgments 
rendered  in  the  circuit  and  superior  courts  of  Cook 
county  during  the  year  1888  was  $7,831,174,  the  greater 
part  of  which  was  in  cases  in  which  there  was  default  or 
a  confession,  and  a  very  large  per  cent,  of  which  is  worth- 
less because  of  the  insolvency  of  the  defendants.  To 
this  work  must  be  added  judgments  in  cases  seeking 
other  than  monied  relief,  such  as  ejectment  suits, 
injunction  suits,  etc.,  and  suits  in  which  it  was  sought 
to  recover  money  but  in  which  the  court  found  for 
defendant. 

If  we  thus  take  the  expense  to  the  public,  as  already 
shown,  and  add  to  this  the  expense  to  the  litigants  in  the 
12,380  cases,  in  the  way  of  lawyers'  fees  on  both  sides,  wit- 
nesses' fees  or  time  on  both  sides,  incidental  expenses 
on  both  sides,  loss  of  time  and  neglect  of  business  on 
both  sides  in  preparing  for  trial,  attending  court,  etc.,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  worry  and  anxiety — it  is  a  question 
whether  the  cost  will  not  exceed  the  total  results  at- 
tained— that  is,  whether  it  does  not  on  the  average  cost 
us  more  to  secure  for  a  man  his  rights  than  they  are 
worth  to  him.  Just  what  this  expense  and  loss  to  liti- 
gants and  witnesses  would  average,  it  is  of  course  impos- 
sible to  say.  It  has  been  variously  estimated  at  from 
$150  to  $250  to  each  side,  or  from  $300  to  $500  in  each 
case.  If  this  estimate  is  nearly  correct,  then  there  is  lit- 
tle doubt  that  the  expense  and  loss  amount  to  more  than 
can  be  realized  on  all  the  judgments  rendered,  or  than 
would  have  been  required  to  settle  all  matters  in  dis- 
pute. 


ADMINISTRATIOX   OF  JUSTICE  IN  CHICAGO.      57 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  we  had  encouraged 
arbitration,  instead  of  discouraging  it,  a  great  saving 
would  have  been  effected  to  both  public  and  litigants. 
But  instead  of  encouraging  a  speedy  adjustment  of 
disputes,  by  having  parties  submit  their  claims  to  arbi- 
trators selected  by  themselves,  the  courts  have  almost 
invited  the  party  defeated  in  an  arbitration  to  come 
into  court  and  tie  the  whole  matter  up  for  several  years 
and  then  have  often  set  the  award  aside  on  purely  tech- 
nical grounds. 

What  I  would  respectfully  urge  upon  the  considera- 
tion of  the  General  Assembly  is  an  amendment  of  the 
law  so  as  to  provide: 

First.  That  in  all  courts  of  record  in  this  State  the 
judge  shall  orally  state  the  law  governing  the  case,  as 
was  the  practice  at  common  law,  and  is  now  the  practice 
in  the  Federal  courts. 

Upon  this  point  I  will  simply  add  that,  the  statute 
requiring  the  instructions  to  be  in  writing  was  passed 
in  order  that  there  should  be  no  dispute  as  to  what  the 
charge  was;  and  inasmuch  as  the  law  at  present  provides 
for  a  stenographer  to  attend  the  sittings  of  every  circuit 
court  to  report  the  proceedings,  the  reason  for  requiring 
that  the  instructions  be  in  writing  no  longer  exists;  and, 
as  there  generally  is  not  time  to  write  a  comprehensive 
charge,  and,  consequently,  cases  are  frequently  submit- 
ted in  an  unsatisfactory  manner  to  a  jury,  the  law 
should  be  changed.  What  we  need  is  to  restore  trial 
by  jury  more  nearly  to  the  condition  and  form  in  which 
it  existed  at  the  common  law  and  still  exists  in  the 
Federal  courts,    taking  away,   however,    the    power   of 


58  LIVE    QUESrrONS. 

one  man  to  thwart  juslicc;  and  when  this  is  clone, 
this  system  of  trial  will  remain  the  best  that  has  yet  been 
devised.  On  the  last  point  I  will  add  that,  in  all  other 
important,  and  even  vital,  matters,  we  accept  the  decision 
of  the  majority.  A  majorit)'-  settles  all  questions  of 
taxation  and  expenditure,  \x\\  questions  of  peace  and 
of  war.  A  majority  decides  who  shall  make  the 
laws.  A  majority  decides  what  shall  be  law,  and, 
finally,  a  majority  decides  who  shall  interpret  and  ad- 
minister the  law.  In  short,  questions  which  reach  to 
the  very  hearthstone  of  tlie  citizen,  and  involve  the  ex- 
istence of  our  institutions  are  settled  by  the  majority, 
and  if,  concerning  any  of  these  matters,  a  man  were  to 
urge  absolute  unanimity,  we  would  question  his  sanity. 
But,  in  determining  a  dispute  over  property,  we  put  it 
into  the  power  of  one  man — be  he  rogue,  or  crank,  or 
sullen  fool — without  any  risk  to  make  a  miscarriage  of 
justice,  or  a  farce  out  of  a  proceeding  which  may  have 
consumed  days  and  have  cost  both  the  public  and  the 
litigants  large  sums  of  money.  And  when  asked  why 
we  permit  such  an  anomoly  our  only  answer  is,  that 
they  did  things  in  this  way  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago;  when  in  truth,  trial  by  jury  then  was  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  from  what  it  is  to-day,  for  then  the  judge 
practically  tried  the  case.  If  we  were  now  to  accept  a 
verdict  of  three-fourths  of  a  panel,  we  would  preserve 
all  that  is  conservative  and  useful  in  our  jury  system, 
and  would  put  an  end  to  the  "funny  verdicts,"  that  we 
hear  about,  and  which  are  generally  due  to  one  man; 
and,  particularly,  would  we  put  an  end  to  the  tamper- 
ing with  justice,  which  in  large  cities  is  a  serious  evil. 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE   IN  CHICAGO.      59 

I  am  in  favor  of  trial  by  jury,  and  am  opposed  to  its 
abolition;  but  the  system  is  now  so  hampered  as  to 
make  it  a  kind  of  absurdity.  Let  us  make  it  a  rational 
institution,  and  it  will  command  the  respect  of  every- 
body. 

Second.  That  when  rendering  judgment  on  the 
merits  in  any  case  in  a  court  of  record,  the  court  shall 
fix  a  reasonable  attorney-fee,  to  be  paid  by  the  losing 
party  to  the  winning  party:  Provided,  that  if  it  appears 
that  an  offer  to  compromise  had  been  made  and  kept 
good  by  the  losing  party,  and  no  more  is  recovered  than 
had  been  offered,  then  no  attorney-fee  shall  be  allowed 
for  what  was  done  thereafter;  and  provided,  that  an 
attorney-fee  shall  only  be  allowed  for  trying  a  case  on 
the  merits. 

Third.  Either  let  the  clerk  of  the  court  collect  fees 
for  everything  that  is  done,  and  turn  them  into  the 
county  treasury,  or  else  tax  as  costs,  to  go  to  the  county, 
a  reasonable  sum  for  every  day,  or  fraction  thereof, 
which  a  case  consumes  at  the  trial;  so  that  the  non-liti- 
gating public  may  at  least  partially  be  relieved  of  the 
burden  of  expense  created  solely  by  litigants. 

Fourth.  That  before  any  appellate  court  or  the 
supreme  court  shall  reverse  a  case  and  send  it  back  to 
be  tried  over,  the  judges  of  such  court,  or  a  majority 
thereof,  shall  state,  in  writing,  that  an  injustice  has 
been  done  the  appellant  in  the  judgment  on  the  merits 
by  the  trial  court;  and  shall  also  specify  wherein  such 
injustice  consists. 

As  to  this  fourth  suggestion,  I  will  simply  say  that  if 
the  framcisof  the  Constitution,  and  the  people  in  adopt- 


6o  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

ing  it,  intended,  in  creating  a  system  of  jurisprudence, 
that  courts  should  be  places  for  lawyers  to  fence,  and 
judges  to  theorize,  and  that  cases  should  be  treated 
simply  as  a  corpse  in  a  dissecting-room  — that  is,  used 
to  illustrate  a  principle  —  then  no  change  should  be 
made,  for  in  many  cases  the  present  system  produces 
everything  that  could  then  be  desired.  But  if  the  object 
in  creating  and  maintaining  courts  was  to  do  justice 
between  man  and  man,  and  if  rules  of  procedure  were' 
to  be  used  simply  as  means  to  this  end,  then  no  reason- 
able objection  can  be  urged  against  this  provision.  The 
trouble  now  is  that  we  lift  cases  into  the  domain  of  opin- 
ion where  there  always  is  a  diversity  of  views,  and  then, 
on  points  which  settle  nothing,  and  do  not  decide  the 
merits,  we  keep  cases  bounding  backward  and  forward 
like  a  foot-ball,  to  the  ruin  of  litigants  —  the  appellate 
court  reversing  the  trial  court,  and  the  supreme  court 
reversing  the  appellate  court. 

Fifth.  That  if  a  matter  is  submitted  to  arbitration, 
the  award  shall  be  final,  and  shall  be  set  aside  only  for 
fraud;  and  that  when  set  aside,  the  arbitrators  shall 
make  a  new  award;  and  that  in  cases  of  mistake,  or 
where  the  award  is  uncertain,  the  arbitrators  may  amend 
it  or  correct  it. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  remark  that  in  the  mercantile 
world,  in  the  manufacturing  w^orld,  in  agriculture,  in 
medicine,  in  fact,  in  nearly  every  field  of  knowledge  or 
human  activity,  there  has  been  an  advance,  a  steady 
improvement,  a  movement  in  the  line  of  common  sense, 
an  honest  efifort  to  keep  abreast  of  the  spirit  of  the 
nineteenth  century;  while  in  our  methods  of  administer- 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE  IN  CHICAGO.      &l 

ing  justice  we  seem  rather  to  have  retrograded.  What 
changes  we  have  made  in  this  State  have  tended  rather 
to  complicate  than  to  simplify.  A  century  ago  trial  by 
jury  in  civil  causes  was  simple,  expeditious,  and,  upon 
the  whole,  satisfactory.  We  have  hampered  and  crippled 
it  in  its  workings  until  many  good  people  are  seriously 
advocating  its  abolition.  A  century  ago  the  courts  of 
appeal  wrote  opinions  that  were  short  and  to  the  point, 
and  generally  decisive  of  the  case;  now,  courts  of  appeal, 
not  only  in  this  State,  write  long  essays — learned  dis- 
quisitions which  frequently  evade  the  main  question 
and  settle  nothing.  On  behalf  of  our  great  profession, 
I  ask,  "Can  not  we,  also,  go  forward?" 

Very  truly  yours, 

John  P.  Altgeld. 


LIVE    QUESTIONS. 


THE    ABOLITION    OF   CONSTABLES,  JUSTICES 
AND  THE  FEE  SYSTEM. 

Chicago,  July  19,  1889. 
Hon.  David  Bartlett, 

Member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention, 

Bismark,  North  Dakota. 
Dear  Sir: — In  answer  to  your  letter  inquiring  about 
the  jurisdiction,  usefulness  and  popularity  of  County 
Courts  in  this  State,  and  whether  they  could  hot  be 
made  to  take  the  place  of  Justices  of  the  Peace,  so  as  to 
do  away  with  the  latter,  permit  me  to  say  that,  in  this 
State,  County  Courts  have  jurisdiction  in  all  tax  matters, 
insane  cases,  all  probate  matters,  election  matters,  and 
in  civil  cases  where  the  amount  involved  is  less  than  one 
thousand  dollars.  In  this  county,  owing  to  the  press  of 
business,  the  legislature  created  a  Probate  Court  several 
years  ago  to  relieve  the  County  Court.  I  may  say  that 
the  County  Courts  have  jurisdiction  in  those  matters 
which  come  nearest  to  the  people,  and  most  directly 
affect  them,  and,  all  things  considered,  I  believe  they 
are  the  most  useful  and  the  most  popular  tribunals  in 
this  State.  So  far  as  I  can  observe,  business  is  usually 
done  by  them  not  only  in  a  legal,  but  also  in  a  business- 
like and  common-sense  method,  and  without  unnecessary 
delay,  the  latter  being  something  which  can  not  always 
be  said  of  our  higher  courts.  While  I  have  a  high  re- 
gard for  some  men  who  now  hold  the  office  of  Justice  of 


CONSTABLES,  JUSTICES  AND  FEE  SYSTEM.       (^Z 

the  Peace,  yet  I  would  recommend  the  abolishing  of  this 
office,  and  that  of  Constable,  and,  instead,  the  giving  to 
the  County  Court  jurisdiction  in  all  matters  now  heard 
by  justices;  but  care  should  be  taken  at  the  same  time 
to  provide  that  the  County  Judge,  as  well  as  Clerk  and 
Sheriff,  should  be  paid  a  fixed  salary,  and  that  these 
should,  under  no  circumstances,  have  anyfees,  but  that 
all  fees,  where  any  are  collected,  should  be  paid  into  the 
county  treasury.  If  you  have  Justices  of  the  Peace  you 
can  not  pay  all  a  salary,  because  of  their  number.  And 
while  there  will  be  here  and  there  one  to  whom  the 
office  will  be  incidental,  there  will  be  a  great  many  who 
will  depend  largely  on  the  fees  for  a  living,  and  this 
leads  everywhere  to  the  same  results,  viz.,  injustice, 
oppression,  extortion  and  frivolous  law-suits,  ruinous  in 
the  expense  and  in  the  loss  of  time  which  they  entail. 
The  courts  become  clogged  with  business,  while  the  poor 
and  the  ignorant  suffer.  Do  away  with  both  Justices 
and  Constables,  for  they  must  depend  on  fees,  and,  as  a 
rule,  are  always  on  the  lookout,  eager  to  "drum  up^' 
business;  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  worse  demor- 
alization and  rottenness  than  usually  grows  out  of  this 
system.  Provide  for  sufficient  deputy-sheriffs  to  do  the 
court  work  and  all  the  work  required  to  keep  peace,  and 
pay  each  a  salary,  and  under  no  circumstances  let  any 
keep  the  fees.  To  permit  any  officer,  whether  judicial 
or  executive,  connected  in  any  manner  with  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  to  collect  and  keep  fees,  is  to  offer  a 
standing  temptation,  if  not  a  bribe,  to  do  wrong  in  very 
many  matters.  And  it  is  asking  too  much  of  human 
nature  to  expect  a  hungry  man   to  be  very  scrupulous 


64  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

about   the  means  or   methods    which   will    secure  him 
bread. 

Have  the  courts  easily  accessible  and  always  open 
for  business.  There  is  no  sense  in  having  terms  of  court, 
and  these  held  only  a  few  times  a  year,  so  that  there 
must  be  delay  in  getting  a  trial,  whether  there  is  much 
business  or  not.  If  the  same  judge  is  to  hold  the  court 
in  several  counties,  or  if  there  is  but  little  business,  he 
can  easily  arrange  matters  by  having  the  clerk  give 
notice  of  the  time  at  which  a  case  will  be  heard.  There 
is  no  reason  why  the  average  case  should  not  be  tried  in 
the  Circuit  Court  in  fifteen  days  after  service,  just  as  it 
would  before  a  Justice  of  the  Peace. 

Although  this  has  been  hurriedly  written,  I  wish  to 
assure  you  of  my  interest  in  the  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness of  your  new  State,  and  of  my  hope  that  you  will  be 
able  to  avoid  errors  and  abuses  which,  once  rooted,  will 
be  difficult  to  cure. 

Very  respectfully  your  obedient  servant, 

John  P.  Altgeld, 


PROTECTING  THE  BALLOT  BOX  — THE 
AUSTRALIAN  PLAN. 

Chicago,  III.,  January  22,  1889. 
Hon.  Richard  Burke,  Senate  Chamber,  Springfield. 

My  Bear  Senator: — Your  esteemed  favor  in  relation  to 
the  Australian  system  of  voting  came  to  hand. 

I  have  considered  the  question  of  engrafting  this 
system  upon  the  laws  of  Illinois,  and  am  strongly  in  favor 
of  so  doing.  I  would  have  written  you  sooner,  but  as 
we  already  have  an  elaborate  election  machinery  in 
Illinois,  particularly  in  Chicago,  it  required  much  time  to 
examine  details  in  order  to  learn  whether  we  could 
adopt  the  Australian  system,  and  at  the  same  time  keep 
what  is  called  our  new  election  law  substantially  intact. 
This  law,  as  you  are  aware,  was  adopted  by  a  popular 
vote,  and  while  it  is  in  some  respects  defective,  it  is  still 
a  very  great  improvement  upon  the  old  lax  system, 
particularly  is  this  true  of  that  part  which  provides  for 
a  careful  registration  of  voters.  Because  it  is  an 
improvement  upon  the  old  system  the  new  law  is  popu- 
lar with  our  people,  and  unless  its  salient  features  will 
remain  undisturbed  by  the  adoption  of  the  Australian 
system  it  will  be  useless  to  give  the  latter  subject  any 
attention.  But  I  am  convinced  not  only  that  this  can  be 
done,  but  that   it  would  be  approved  by  every  lover  of 

(65) 


66  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

an  lionest  election,  and  a  fair  and  entirely  free  ballot, 
and  I  believe  that  the  enclosed  bill  will  accomplish  the 
desired  result.  If  adopted,  this  system  will  secure  us 
not  only  an  honest  and  free  expression  of  the  popular 
will  upon  any  question  from  both  rich  and  poor,  high 
and  low — which  alone  would  be  enough  to  warrant  its 
adoption — but  it  would  do  more,  it  would  put  an  end  to 
the  small  political  boss,  with  his  retainers;  it  would  wipe 
out  the  partisan  ticket-peddlers,  and  the  entire  crowd  of 
half  ruffians  who  sometimes  are  found  at  the  polls,  and 
who  make  themselves  so  offensive  by  importuning  the 
voter,  that  many  modest  men  hesitate  to  go  there. 

Further,  it  would  enable  a  poor  man  to  run  for  office, 
for  he  would  need  no  ticket  peddlers,  nor  any  of  the 
machinery  that  is  now  necessary  to  get  his  tickets  into 
the  voter's  hands,  and  it  would  make  him  absolutely 
independent  of  the  party  boss.  In  short,  it  would  place 
every  candidate  upon  his  own  personal  merits  before 
the  people;  and  by  enabling  the  elector  to  vote  for  the 
best  men  without  scratching  his  ticket,  it  would  destroy 
that  partisan  tyranny  which,  by  thorough  organization, 
is  at  present  enabled  to  foist  on  the  public  bad  men  and 
bad  measures,  simply  because  it  is  embarrassing  for  a 
man  to  scratch  his  ticket  in  the  presence  of  his  party 
associates. 

Again,  it  would  stop  the  practice  that  prevails 
among  some  employers  of  forcing  their  men  to  vote  as 
directed,  and  it  would,  also,  stop  to  some  extent  the  use 
of  money  at  the  polls,  for  under  this  system  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  purchaser  of  a  vote  to  make  sure  of 
its  delivery. 


PROTECTING    THE  BALLOT  BOX.  67 

In  regard  to  the  importance  of  protecting  the  ballot, 
so  as  to  make  it  what  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  con- 
template that  it  should  be,  there  can  be  among  thought- 
ful men  no  difference  of  opinion.  It  is  the  vital  organ 
of  our  whole  system;  destroy  its  functions  and  we 
perish.  It  is  true  that,  like  other  republican  institu- 
tions, it  possesses  great  vitality,  and  can  stand  some 
abuse.  We  have  seen  one  great  political  party,  with 
apparent  justification,  charge  its  adversary  with  having 
thwarted  the  expressed  will  of  the  American  people  in 
seating  a  chief  magistrate  of  the  nation,  and  with 
having  thereafter,  in  various  States,  repeatedly  outraged 
a  free  ballot  by  bribery  and  corruption. 

While  the  other  great  political  party,  with  equal  justi- 
fication, accuses  its  opponent  with  systematically  defeat- 
ing the  w411  of  the  majority  in  certain  localities  by  fraud 
and  intimidation.  But  while  these  things  show  that 
our  system  has  great  powers  of  endurance,  and  great 
recuperative  force,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are 
dealing  with  the  heart,  and,  although  it  may  do  its 
work  for  a  time,  yet  a  continuation  of  abuses  must  not 
only  weaken  it,  but  eventually  stop  its  action,  and  with 
its  expiring  beat  will  come  the  end  of  our  free  institu- 
tions. We  read  that  when  the  children  of  Israel  were 
marching  through  the  wilderness,  by  Divine  instruction 
they  deposited  those  things  which  were  most  sacred  in 
the  ark,  near  which  only  those  especially  commissioned 
by  Jehovah  were  permitted  to  come.  Every  stranger 
attempting  to  approach  it  was  smitten  dead  upon  the 
spot. 

The  American  people  have  likewise  been  given  an 


68 


LIVE   QUESTIONS. 


ark,  in  which  to  deposit  the  most  sacred  things  known 
to  man,  namely,  the  ballots  of  free  men,  and  we  should 
see  to  it  that  only  those  authorized  to  do  so  by  law  be 
permitted  to  approach  this  ark," and  that  every  person 
attempting  to  lay  unclean  hands  upon  it  be  overtaken 
by  the  wrath  of  a  free  people,  which  should  be  as 
destructive  as  the  lightnings  of  Jehovah. 

Very  truly  yours, 

John  P.  Altgeld, 


IS  THE  WORLD  WORSE  ?— DIVORCES— MORAL 
TRAINING. 

Chicago,  III.,  September  30,  18S7. 

George  R.  Stetson,  Boston,  Mass. 

My  Dear  Sir: — Your  favor  of  the  7th  inst.  came  to 

hand,  and  I  thank  you  for  the  kindly  reference  to  my 

little  book. 

I  fully  agree  with  you   in  regard  to  the  importance 

of  "proper  home  influences  in  childhood  and  of  thorough 
and  well-disciplined  education  in  early  life."  In  fact 
upon  these  hangs  the  hope  of  the  future.  You  have 
placed  me  under  obligations  by  sending  me  a  copy  of 
your  articles  on  "Illiteracy  and  Crime"  and  "The 
Necessity  of  Moral  and  Industrial  Training."  I  have 
read  them  with  great  interest,  and  hope  they  may  have 
a  wide  circulation. 

While  I  am  in  hearty  accord  with  you  in  your  aims, 
and  admit  the  necessity  of  more  thorough  moral  as  well 
as  industrial  training  of  the  young,  yet,  if  you  will 
pardon  me  for  saying  so,  I  do  not 'believe  that  the 
world  is  any  worse  now  than  it  was  fifty  years,  or  more, 
ago,  as  you  seem  to  infer,  from  the  fact  that  arrests  and 
convictions  for  crime,  as  well  as  the  number  of  divorces 
in  proportion  to  population,  are  increasing.  On  the 
contrary,  I  believe  that,  all  things  considered,  the  world 
is  a  little  better  now  than  it  has  been  in  the  past.     But 

we  have  devised  and  adopted  new  agencies  for  detect- 

(69) 


70  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

I'ng  and  recording  the  foibles  and  transgressions  of  not 
only  men,  but  even  of  children,  and,  in  order  to  con- 
vince us  that  they  are  doing  something,  these  agencies 
bring  to  our  attention  thousands  of  cases  which  before 
went  unnoticed.  Just  as  the  microscope  reveals  a 
whole  world  which  existed,  but  was  almost  unknown 
before,  so  our  modern  police  systems,  detective  agencies, 
municipal  governments,  with  their  multifarious  ordi- 
nances, etc.,  bring  to  light  and  record  acts,  the  greater 
part  of  which  used  to  pass  unnoticed.  I  can  remember 
the  time  Vvhen  the  magistrate  took  notice  of  only  the 
more  serious  offenses,  and  when,  if  a  man  was  found 
drunk  on  the  streets,  he  was  simply  taken  home;  if  a 
boy  got  into  mischief,  his  father  would  whip  him,  and 
that  was  the  end  of  it;  if  two  men  quarreled,  they  would 
fight  it  out,  and  then  go  home;  even  many  dangerous 
criminals  went  undetected,  but  now  all  this  is  changed. 
Not  only  are  the  grave  offenders  more  generally 
detected,  but  all  the  parties  guilty  of  trivial  offenses 
must  now  be  arrested,  tried,  put  in  jail,  etc.,  so  that  the 
record  will,  of  course,  show  a  greater  number  of  arrests 
and  convictions  than  formerly.  But  this,  it  seems  to 
me,  does  not  necessarily  prove  that  men  are  any  more 
depraved  or  vicious  now  than  they  were  in  the  past. 

Further,  the  effect  of  numerous  arrests,  incarcera- 
tion, prison  associations,  etc.,  is  to  break  the  self-respect 
and  weaken  the  moral  character  of  many  of  the  young, 
and  thus  to  prepare  them  for  the  commission  of  crimes 
of  which  they  would  never  have  been  guilty  except  for 
their  degrading  experiences.  Therefore,  while  prison 
Statistics  may  assist  us  in  forming  a  correct  opinion 


IS    THE    WORLD    WORSE?  71 

concerning  the  present  moral  condition  of  society,  it 
seems  to  me  they  are  of  little  value  for  purpose  of  com- 
parison between  different  periods. 

In  regard  to  the  increase  in  the  number  of  divorces 
in  proportion  to  the  population,  allow  me  to  ask,  Would 
this  not  almost  necessarily  follow  an  era  of  great  educa- 
tional activity,  an  era  in  which  there  were  a  thousand 
agencies  at  work,  not  only  among  men  but  among 
women,  all  tending  to  place  the  latter  on  an  equality 
with  men,  and  tending,  in  many  cases,  to  create  dissat- 
isfaction with  existing  conditions?  Would  there  not 
almost  necessarily  follow  a  period  of  transition  or  re- 
adjustment, and  when  the  re-adjustment  has  taken  place, 
will  the  organization  of  society  not  rest  on  a  more  intel- 
ligent basis  than  before,  and  therefore  the  world  be  a  lit- 
tle better  than  before,  although  it  may  appear  worse 
while  the  re-adjustment  is  in  process?  Besides,  is  it  not 
true  that  the  number  of  divorces  is  in  proportion  to  the 
progress  made  in  the  emancipation  of  women?  In  those 
countries  where  women  are  merely  beasts  of  burden 
there  are  no  divorces.  Further,  is  separation,  with  all 
its  ills,  not  better  for  society  than  union  and  the  rearing 
of  a  family  amid  depraving  and  brutal  conditions?  It 
seems  to  me  that  children  who  have  frequently  to  see 
their  mother  thrashed  by  a  brutal  or  drunken  father, 
can  not  get  a  very  exalted  idea  of  life,  and  that  any  sys- 
tem which  will  keep  a  man  and  woman  together  under 
these  circumstances,  is  barbarous,  and  can  not  possibly 
be  productive  of  any  good  to  the  world. 

"The  degeneracy  of  the  times'' has  always  been  a 
favorite  theme,  but  one  which  is  liable  to  mislead,  and 


72  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

ever  must  be  so,  for  the  imperfections,  weaknesses 
eind  follies  of  "  the  present "  are  not  only  seen,  but  are 
felt,  whereas  the  imperfections,  weaknesses  and  follies 
of  "  the  past "  are  not  only  unfelt,  but  are  mostly  unseen, 
because  the  mists  of  oblivion  hide  all  but  the  more  con- 
spicuous objects  and  events  from  our  view.  While, 
therefore,  different  periods  of  history  may  be  compared, 
it  is  very  difficult  to  compare  "the  present  "with  any 
other  time. 

However,  while  claiming  that  the  world  is  better  now 
than  formerly,  I  admit  that  it  is  still  bad,  and  that 
there  is  a  crying  necessity  for  more  thorough  moral 
and  industrial  training,  and  I  hope  you  may  be  able  to 
arouse  the  interest  of  the  American  public  in  this  ques- 
tion, and  thus  pave  the  way  for  improved  methods  of 
instruction. 

I  like  your  idea  of  moral  text-books  for  use  in  schools. 
If  properly  prepared,  I  believe  they  will  serve  an  excel- 
lent purpose.  The  trouble  now  is  with  much  of  the 
moral  teaching  that  it  holds  up  the  punishment  for 
wrong  doing  as  a  remote  event,  before  the  happening  of 
which  there  will  be  abundant  opportunity  to  reform,  to 
be  forgiven,  etc.,  so  that  the  child  gets  no  proper  compre- 
hension of  the  instantaneous,  degrading  and  weakening 
effect  upon  its  nature  of  doing  a  mean  or  a  wrong  act. 
The  child  gets  an  abstract  or  theoretic  notion  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  thinks  it  can  go  and  do  the  wrong  and 
yet  be  precisely  the  same  person  afterward  that  it  was 
before,  simply  having  taken  the  chance  of,  at  some  time, 
being  punished.  In  other  words,  our  youth,  as  a  rule, 
are  not  made  to  understand  that  every  time  they  tell  a 


IS    THE    WORLD    WORSE?  73 

lie  or  steal  or  do  any  wrong  act,  their  nature  undergoes 
a  change  and  they  are  no  longer  quite  the  same  persons 
that  they  were  before;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  every 
time  they  do  a  noble  act,  they  expand  and  instantly 
become  stronger  and  greater  than  they  were  before. 
Their  idea  of  punishment  is  that  it  is  an  arbitrary  decree 
of  religion,  they  get  no  idea  of  the  degrading  and  weak- 
ening effect  of  sin  on  both  mind  and  body.  We  tell  a 
child  to  avoid  fire,  and  it  obeys;  not  because  it  may  be 
damned  for  disobedience,  but  because  it  knows  that 
there  will  be  instant  suffering.  Make  the  child  once 
thoroughly  understand  that  if  it  does  any  wrong  act 
there  will  follow  instant  suffering,  and  it  will  heed  where 
now  it  does  not. 

In  many  cases  morals  can  be  successfully  taught 
from  a  purely  religious  standpoint,  but  in  very  many 
others  this  can  only  be  done  from  a  practical  point  of 
view,  and  the  needs  of  these  cases  could  be  met  by  moral 
text-books  such  as  you  recommend. 

Asking  your  pardon  for  thus  obtruding  my  views  on 
your  attention,  and  hoping  you  will  favor  me  with  a  copy 
of  any  article  you  may  publish  in  the  future,  I  am, 
Very  respectfully  yours, 

John  P.  Altgeld. 


74  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 


THE  RICH  MAN'S  BREAD  AND  THE    POOR- 
CARDINAL  MANNINGS  POSITION. 

\^Froni  the  Chicago  limes,  January  ij,  iSSS.^ 

To  the  Editor: — I  have  received  from  you  the  follow- 
ing in  regard  to  the  utterances  of  Cardinal  Manning: 

"London,  Jan.  2. — The  cable  dispatch  which  Dr.  Mc- 
Glynn  read  at  the  anti-poverty  meeting  in  New  York 
last  night,  surprising  as  it  may  seem,  did  correctly  report 
Cardinal  Manning's  words.  They  occur  in  a  little  arti- 
cle at  the  end  of  The  Fortnightly,  sent  in  answer  to  some 
recent  strictures  by  IVie  London  Times  on  recent  utter- 
ances of  his  eminence.  The  cardinal  devotes  his  three 
pages  to  a  demonstration  that  the  recognition  of  the 
right  to  property  involves  and  rests  on  the  admission  of 
the  right  to  live.  The  exact  words  of  the  passage  are: 
*I  answer  that  the  obligation  to  feed  the  hungry  springs 
from  the  natural  right  of  every  man  to  life  and  to  the 
food  necessary  to  the  sustenance  of  life.  So  strict  is  this 
natural  right  that  it  prevails  over  all  positive  laws  of 
property.  Necessity  has  no  law,  and  a  starving  man  has 
a  right  to  his  neighbor's  bread.'  The  cardinal  then  goes 
into  a  disquisition  on  the  historic  poor-laws  of  England, 
and  shows  that  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  this 
natural  right  was  over  and  over  again  recognized  and 
enforced  by  statute." 

You  ask  whether  the  recognition  by  statute  of  the 
right  referred  to  by  the  cardinal  would  be  wholesome, 


THE   RICH  MAN'S  BREAD  AND    THE   POOR.      75 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  an  unwarrantable  effort  is  being 
made  to  create  a  sensation  out  of  what  his  eminence  said, 
for  while  some  of  his  sentences,  when  standing  alone, 
sound  strange,  yet  when  considered  together  in  con- 
nection with  the  occasion  which  provoked  them  and  with 
the  people  to  whom  they  were  addressed — that  is,  when 
taken  in  the  sense  in  which  he  evidently  meant  to  be 
understood — they  are  neither  radical  nor  revolutionary, 
but  simply  announce  a  principle  which  society  has  long 
recognized,  and,  to  some  extent,  acted  on,  viz.,  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  society  to  take  care  of  its  indigent.  The 
laws  of  Illinois,  which  annually  take  several  million  dol- 
lars in  the  way  of  taxes  from  one  class  of  citizens  against 
their  will  to  support  the  helpless  of  various  kinds,  all 
rest  on  this  principle,  and  the  statute  in  relation  to  pau- 
pers expressly  recognizes  the  right  of  the  recipient. 
They  all  take  one  man's  bread  and  give  it  to  another. 
Now,  when  Cardinal  Manning  said,  ''' Necessity  knows 
no  law,  and  a  starving  man  has  a  right  to  his  neighbor's 
bread,"  he  was  not  addressing  the  poor,  but  he  had  been 
laboring  to  arouse  the  English  public  to  discharge  its 
duty  toward  the  poor,  and  used  the  words  referred  to 
in  answer  to  some  criticisms  on  his  course.  They  were 
addressed  to  the  rich,  not  to  the  poor.  It  was  an  in- 
direct argument  as  well  as  warning.  Had  he  held  the 
views  attributed  to  him  he  would  have  talked  not  to  the 
rich,  but  to  the  poor,  and  told  them  to  go  and  supply 
their  necessities  from  their  neighbor's  property.  But, 
instead  of  this,  he  tried  to  convince  the  rich  that  a  starv- 
ing man  has  rights,  but  did  not  say  how  these  rights 
should  be  enforced.      He  never  has  said  that,  as  society 


76  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

is  now  organized,  the  starving  may  lawfully  seize  their 
neighbor's  property,  and  until  he  does  we  must  presume 
that  he  meant  that  this  right,  like  all  other  rights,  should 
be  enforced  according  to  law.  That  this  was  his  mean- 
ing is  further  shown  by  his  reference  to  the  Elizabethan 
poor-laws,  and  his  approval  of  them,  for  these  laws  did 
not  authorize  the  starving  to  take  by  force  other 
people's  property,  but  made  liberal  provisions  for  feed- 
ing the  poor,  while  they  imposed  severe  restrictions. 
And  I  will  say  here  that  no  statute  can  or  ever  will  be 
passed  authorizing  every  man  to  judge  of  his  own  neces- 
sities and  then  go  and  help  himself  to  his  neighbor's 
property.  Such  a  law  would  in  one  jump  carry  us  back 
to  barbarism.  The  mistake  lies  in  confounding  the  ?-ig/it 
of  which  the  cardinal  did  speak,  with  the  method  of  en- 
forcing it,  of  which  he  did  not  speak. 

Take  the  right  of  a  creditor  to  be  paid  out  of  his 
debtor's  property.  No  right  is  more  clearly  recognized 
by  law — yet  he  can  not  go  and  seize  his  debtor's  prop- 
erty and  sell  it  himself  to  pay  his  claim,  but  must  pro- 
ceed through  agencies  prescribed  by  law.  So  the  right 
of  the  hungry  to  bread — it  can  only  be  enforced  through 
agencies  created  by  law.  The  law  can  make  no  dis- 
tinction between  stealing  bread  and  stealing  gold  with 
which  to  buy  bread,  nor  can  it  recognize  necessity  as  an 
exonerating  excuse  for  larceny,  although  in  fixing  the 
penalty  all  extenuating  circumstances  are  considered. 

However,  law  is  only  potent  when  backed  by  public 
sentiment,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  if  a  starving  man 
were  caught  stealing  bread,  the  public,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  a  part  of  the  clergy,  would  hold  that  not 


THE  RICH  MAN'S  BREAD  AND    THE  POOR.       77 

much  should  be  done  about  it;  and,  if  he  were  prose- 
cuted, while  the  law  would  have  to  pronounce  him  guilty, 
the  penalty  would  be  light. 

We  read  that  both  Christ  and  his  apostles  satisfied 
their  hunger — and  they  were  not  yet  starving — by  eat- 
ing another  man's  corn,  without  his  consent,  as  they 
passed  through  his  field;  and  they  did  this  even  on  the 
Sabbath.  When  one  thinks  of  this  and  then  reads  some 
of  the  letters  of  the  clergy  of  this  city  published  in  the 
Sunday  Times  holding  that  a  starving  man  should  die 
rather  than  touch  his  neighbor's  bread,  one  can  not 
doubt  that  it  is  a  long  time  since  Christ  was  on  earth,  for 
we  are  evidently  much  more  advanced  in  morals  than 
He  was. 

Taken  in  the  sense  in  which  I  believe  the  cardinal 
meant  to  be  understood,  I  approve  his  utterances,  and 
will  add  that  it  is  a  hopeful  sign  of  the  times  that  a  man 
of  so  great  learning  and  influence  should  interest  him- 
self in  a  practical  manner  in  the  condition  of  the  poorer 
classes,  for  out  of  investigation  will  come  a  more  healthy 
and  happy  condition  of  affairs — not  in  the  way  of  alms- 
giving, but  in  the  way  of  making  it  possible  for  the  poor 
to  take  care  of  themselves. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  adage  "  He  who  will  not 
work  neither  shall  he  eat,"  seemed  to  cover  almost  the 
whole  question,  because  there  was,  especially  in  this 
country,  plenty  of  work  to  be  had  at  living  wages,  and 
nearly  all  who  would  could  keep  themselves  out  of  the 
reach  of  hunger.  But  times  have  changed,  so  that  now 
there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  men  in  our  large  cities  and 
a  good  sprinkling  all  over  the  country  who  are  ready  and 


78  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

willing  to  work,  but  can  get  nothing  to  do  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  time,  and  get  very  low  wages  when  they  do 
work,  so  that  they  and  their  families  are  frequently 
reduced  to  absolute  destitution  with  the  accompany- 
ing sickness  and  suffering.  In  all  of  our  large  cities  there 
are  thousands  of  women  who  try  to  support  themselves 
and  their  families  by  sewing.  They  work  for  large 
establishments  and  are  paid  wages  so  shamefully  low 
that  even  when  well  and  at  work  they  can  not  supply 
their  wants.  They  get  forty  cents  a  dozen  for  making 
shirts,  and  in  the  same  proportion  for  making  other  gar- 
ments, and  by  working  twelve  to  sixteen  hours  a  day 
can  earn  only  from  $3  to  $5  per  week;  and  sometimes 
even  this  amount  is  reduced  by  means  of  fines,  so  that  the 
moment  they  are  sick  or  out  of  work  they  are  at  starva- 
tion's door.  Now,  it  is  an  insult  to  both  of  these  great 
classes  to  talk  to  them  about  laziness  or  shiftlessness — 
expressions  which  are  constantly  on  the  tongues  of  peo- 
ple who  started  in  life  with  good  brains,  good  training 
and  excellent  advantages,  and  who  are  now  well-housed, 
well-clothed,  and  well-fed,  who  believe  "everything  is 
for  the  best  in  the  best  of  worlds;"  w^ho  move  only 
among  the  comfortable  and  self-satisfied,  and  who  know 
nothing  about  the  actual  condition  or  the  wants  of  the 
poor;  who  never  entered  a  really  poor  man's  hovel, 
where  there  was  but  little  fire,  or  saw  him  sit  down  with 
a  large  family  to  a  table  upon  which  there  was  nothing 
but  a  little  black  bread. 

Honest  investigation  into  the  condition  of  the  poor 
will  produce  beneficial  results,  and  if  this  agitation  shall 
serve  to  enlighten  the  public  at  large  in   regard  to  the 


THE  RICH  MAN'S  BREAD  AND    THE  POOR.       79 

real  character  and  condition  of  our  poorer  classes,  then 
remedies  will  soon  be  found  which  will  without  violence 
and  without  revolution  greatly  improve  this  condition 
and  serve  to  increase  the  greatness,  the  prosperity,  and 
the  happiness  of  our  country. 

John  P.  Altgeld. 


8o  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 


SLAVE   GIRLS  OF  CHICAGO. 

Views  on  the  condition  of  the  poor  drudges  in  our 
FACTORIES.  —  Facts  to  show  that  legislation  can 
do  an  enormous  amount  of  good  in  the  matter. — 
How  pauper  labor  affects  wages  and  tends  to 
produce  this  deplorable  state  of  things. 

NOTE. — During  the  Summer  of  1888  The  Chicago  Times  pub- 
lished a  series  of  articles  exposing  in  a  graphic  manner  the  appall- 
ing conditions  of  the  great  multitude  of  children  and  women  that 
are  working  in  our  factories  and  in  other  industrial  establishments 
of  Chicago.  The  articles  called  attention,  particularly,  to  the  fact 
that  there  are  many  thousands  of  children  of  tender  years  who  for  a 
pittance  are  doing  the  work  of  adults  and  becoming  stunted  in  both 
body  and  mind  when  they  should  be  at  school,  and  to  the  further 
fact  that  many  thousands  of  women  work  ten  hours,  and  more, 
per  day,  and  get  only  from  $3  to  $4  per  week,  and  board  them- 
selves and  frequently  lose  a  part  of  this  because  of  fines,  which  in 
some  cases  seem  to  be  imposed  with  a  view  of  still  further  reducing 
their  wages,  while  the  sanitary  and  moral  surroundings  of  both  the 
children  and  the  women  in  the  shops  are  often  of  a  revolting  charac- 
ter. In  answer  to  a  letter  from  the  editor,  concerning  these  sub- 
jects, the  following  article  was  written  and  published  in  The 
Chicago  Times,  September  9,  1888. 

To  the  Editor: — In  answer  to  your  letter  relating  to 
the  "slave  girls"  of  Chicago:  I  have  read  all  the  arti- 
cles published  in  The  Times  with  great  interest,  and 
while  the  reporter,  owing  to  the  short  time  spent  in  each 
establishment,  almost  necessarily  got  wrong  impres- 
sions in  some  cases  and  perhaps  has  done  some  firms  an 
injustice,  yet  I  know  from  experience  and  personal 
observation    that    upon  the  whole  the    picture   is    not 


SLAVE   GIRLS  OF  CHICAGO.  8 1 

overdrawn,  and  I  will  add  that  in  making  this  exposure 
so  general  and  so  thorough  The  Times  has  rendered  to 
the  toiling  poor,  and  in  the  long  run  to  society,  inesti- 
mable service. 

The  first  and  all-important  step  toward  improvement 
always  is  to  get  light  into  dark  places.  IngersoU  says 
that  the  sun  is  the  only  God  that  ever  protected  women. 
Whether  this  is  so  or  not,  it  is  true  that  sunlight  is  the 
great  purifier,  reformer  and  elevator  of  the  universe. 
Wrong  thrives  in  bad  light  and  fowl  air.  Turn  the  sun- 
light of  intelligence  on  an  evil  long  enough,  and  it  will 
dissolve  it.  The  Times  has  turned  the  light  on  the  con- 
dition of  the  toiling  girls  and  women  of  Ciiicago  at 
least  long  enough  to  give  a  view  of  the  situation,  and 
the  remedy  will  gradually  appear. 

No  complete  remedy  can  be  made  to  order  in  ad- 
vance. What  is  needed  is  a  change  of  condition,  and 
this  can  only  come  by  degrees.  As  to  these  people 
themselves,  it  is  necessary  to  raise  their  standard  of 
intelligence;  until  this  is  done  they  can  do  but  little  to 
help  themselves,  for  ignorance  and  helplessness  go 
together.  Society  can  do  this  and  it  can  furnish  them 
protection  —  nothing  more  —  nor  will  much  more  be 
required,  for  this  once  done  they  will  be  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  The  trouble  is  that  the  light  can 
not  be  turned  upon  the  case  long  enough  and  it  will 
probably  be  a  long  time  before  such  powerful  rays  will 
again  be  thrown  on  it.  Meanwhile  society,  with  its  ten 
thousand  other  affairs,  must  move  on,  and  the  majority 
will  soon  cease  to  take  an  active  interest  in  this  matter; 
in  fact,  will  forget  about  it. 


82  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

But  enough  interest  has  been  aroused  to  set  in 
motion  some  of  the  forces  which  will  bring  about  a 
change,  and  there  will  be  found  to  be  some  men  and 
women  who  have  this  matter  at  heart,  and  who  will 
keep  the  fire  slowly  burning  and  keep  up  an  agitation 
through  weary  years,  sometimes  getting  a  little  dis- 
heartened, but  in  the  end  triumphing.  All  great  move- 
ments require  time,  labor  and  sacrifice. 

You  ask,  "Can  anything  be  done  for  these  girls  by 
legislation?"  Emphatically  yes.  It  has  already  done 
much  for  them,  both  here  and  in  Europe,  and  will  do 
more.  Understand  me;  legislation  can  not  fix  prices, 
but  it  can,  and  to  a  certain  extent  does,  reach  almost 
every  other  feature  of  the  case,  and  indirectly  may  even 
affect  prices.  For  example:  Legislation  can  prevent 
children  of  tender  years  from  being  stunted  in  factories 
when  they  should  be  at  school,  and  thus  it  can  not  only 
reduce  the  number  of  competitors,  but  wipe  out  the 
practice  of  hiring  children  to  do  the  work  of  adults,  one 
of  the  worst  of  existing  abuses.  Legislation  can  secure  to 
every  shop  girl  good  light,  good  ventilation,  reasonably 
comfortable  quarters  while  at  work,  healthy  sanitary 
conditions,  such  as  sufficient  wash-bowls  (not  dirty 
sinks),  ample  closet-rooms,  etc. 

In  countries  that  do  not  boast  as  much  of  their 
enlightenment  as  we  do,  legislation  has  for  years  given 
to  every  child,  no  matter  how  poor,  a  certain  number  of 
months'  schooling  and  incidental  training  every  year 
and  it  will  eventually  do  so  here,  and  as  general  igno- 
rance is  perhaps  the  main  cause  of  the  helplessness  of 
the  poorer  classes,  when  we   once  give  all  children  at 


SLAVE    GIRLS  OF   CHICAGO.  '&2> 

least  half  a  chance  to  develop  into  intelligent  men  and 
women,  instead  of  growing  up  on  the  streets  to  become 
criminals  or  in  shops  -to  become  stunted  for  life,  we 
shall  have  made  considerable  headway  in  furnishing  a 
remedy. 

Again,  legislation  can  and  in  time  will  put  an  end  to 
the  wholesale  importation  by  mine-owners,  large  employ- 
ers, and  other  interested  parties  of  European  paupers 
who  do  not  come  as  independent  immigrants — of  the  lat- 
ter this  country  does  not  complain,  in  fact  it  owes  much 
of  its  greatness  to  them,  but  these  paupers  are  brought 
over  like  so  many  cattle  and  necessarily  glut  the  labor 
market  and  drag  down  the  American  laborer  (whether 
native-born  or  naturalized)  with  his  family.  I  know  it 
is  said,  "Oh,  legislation  amounts  to  nothing  unless 
there  is  public  sentiment  to  back  it,"  and  this  is  true. 
But  this  agitation  will  create  public  sentiment,  in  fact  it 
is  never  brought  into  existence  in  any  other  way,  and  it 
generally  takes  time,  much  hard  work,  and  much  tribu- 
lation to  create  it,  and  has  it  occurred  to  you  that  pub- 
lic sentiment  usually  accomplishes  little  in  matters  of 
this  kind  until  it  crystallizes  into  legislation  ?  In  fact, 
society  gives  expression  to  its  sentiment  on  a  public 
question  by  means  of  legislation.  While  legislation  not 
backed  by  public  sentiment  may  be  a  dead  letter,  public 
sentiment  produces  definite  and  lasting  results  only 
through  legislation.  Moral  suasion  and  the  benign 
influence  of  religion  are  beautiful,  but  unfortunately  in 
all  ages  there  have  been  men  who  went  straight  from  the 
sanctuary  intt)  the  world  and  plundered  and  trampled 
on  the  weak,  and,  what  is  more,  they  lost  neither  their 


§4  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

seats  nor  their  influence  in  the  temple.  So  that  after 
all  it  is  legislation  which  protects  the  lowly.  And  leg- 
islation itself  is  a  matter  of  growth;  it  is  scarcely  ever 
efficient  at  first,  and  only  after  experience  has  suggested 
the  necessary  alterations  and  amendments  does  it  become 
potent. 

If  anyone  doubts  the  efficacy  of  legislation  in  this 
direction  let  him  study  the  history  and  results  of  the 
factory  and  mining  legislation  in  England  and  some  of 
the  continental  countries,  and  he  will  find  that  while 
we  are  great  politicians  and  make  a  great  noise,  yet  in 
practical  and  enlightened  statesmanship  some  of  the 
European  countries  are  a  full  half-century  in  advance  of 
us.  Early  in  this  century  there  existed  in  the  English 
factories  and  mines  a  condition  of  things  which  reduced 
women  and  children  almost  below  the  brutes,  a  condi- 
tion compared  with  which  the  Chicago  slave-girls  are 
lolling  in  luxury.  To  quote  an  eminent  author:  "  A 
whole  generation  were  growing  up  under  conditions  of 
physical  degeneracy,  of  mental  ignorance,  and  of  moral 
corruption." 

In  1802,  after  much  agitation,  an  act,  very  narrow  in 
its  scope,  was  passed  to  protect  apprentices  in  certain 
factories.  In  1815  Sir  Robert  Peel  endeavored  to  secure 
similar  protection  for  children  in  certain  factories,  but 
he  was  not  able  to  secure  the  passage  of  such  an  act 
till  in  1819,  for  it  met  with  the  most  bitter  opposition, 
as  did  every  one  of  the  many  measures  thereafter 
passed  to  protect  women  and  children.  Not  only  did 
the  employers  do  everything  within  their  power  in 
opposition,  but  so-called  statesmen,  political  economists, 


SLAVE    GIRLS  OF   CHICAGO.  «5 

philosophers,  and  many  of  the  clergy  united  to  oppose 
them.  Every  argument  and  every  sophistry  that  the 
mind  can  conceive  was  exhausted  by  these  eminent  peo- 
ple, and  they  predicted  the  industrial  and  financial  ruin 
of  the  British  empire  as  the  result  of  such  legislation. 
It  is  a  curious  and  sad  fact  that  in  the  long,  weary 
upward  march  of  the  human  race  there  was  scarcely 
ever  an  act  proposed  for  the  protection,  emancipation, 
or  elevation  of  the  poor  but  met  with  the  most  violent 
opposition  from  the  so-called  belter  classes,  as  well  as 
from  statesmen  and  philosophers  and  from  many  of  the 
clergy. 

After  the  act  of  1819  the  agitation  was  kept  up  by  a 
few  humanitarians.  In  1825  another  act  was  passed 
broader  in  its  scope,  and  owing  to  continued  agitation 
thereafter,  at  intervals  of  from  two  to  six  years  down  to 
1878,  acts  broader  and  more  stringent  in  their  character 
were  passed,  resulting  in  the  most  advanced  system  of 
factory  and  mining  legislation  in  the  world — a  system 
which  has  been  adopted  by  almost  every  civilized 
country  in  Europe.  Although  the  earlier  acts  were 
evaded  in  every  way  and  were  practically  dead  letters, 
yet  in  the  end  they  accomplished  more  than  their  friends 
had  expected  of  them. 

In  1867  the  great  duke  of  Argyle,  in  writing  of  this 
legislation,  said:  "Some  of  the  old  opponents  have 
admitted  that  their  fear  of  the  results  in  an  economical 
point  of  view  has  proved  erroneous.  But  there  is  no 
clear  and  well-grounded  intellectual  perception  of  the 
deep  foundations  of  principle  on  which  it  rests.  Nor  is 
there  among  a  large  section  of  politicians  any  adequate 


86 


LIVE    QUESTIONS. 


appreciation  of  the  powerful  influence  it  has  had  in 
improving  tlie  physical  condition  of  the  people  and  secur- 
ing their  contentment  with  the  laws  under  which  they 
live.  When,  however,  we  think  for  a  moment  of  the 
frightful  nature  of  the  evils  which  this  legislation  has 
checked  and  which  to  a  large  extent  it  has  remedied, 
when  we  recollect  the  connection  between  suffering  and 
political  disaffection,  when  we  consider  the  great  moral 
laws  which  were  being  trodden  under  foot  from  mere 
thoughtlessness  and  greed,  we  shall  be  convinced  that 
if,  during  the  last  fifty  years,  it  has  been  given  to  this 
country  to  make  any  progress  in  political  science,  that 
progress  has  been  in  nothing  happier  than  in  the  factory 
legislation.  No  government  and  no  minister  has  ever 
done  greater — perhaps  all  things  considered,  none  has 
ever  done  so  great  a  service.  It  was  altogether  a  new 
era  in  legislation  —  the  adoption  of  a  new  principle  — 
the  establishment  of  a  new  idea." 

I  will  only  add  on  this  point  that  we  have  already 
recognized  the  principle  and  adopted  some  of  this 
factory  legislation,  and  have  already  derived  some 
benefits  from  it.  It  is,  perhaps,  true  that  it  is  not 
properly  enforced,  and  it  will  probably  require  much 
more  legislation  to  make  it  efficacious,  but  if  only  a  few 
zealous  and  determined  people  will  continue  this  agita- 
tion, they  will,  in  time,  secure  not  only  the  needed  legis- 
lation, but  a  proper  enforcement  of  it. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  compulsory  education  act. 
It  may  be  a  dead  letter  now,  but  it  will  not  always  be 
so;  by  and  by  some  earnest  persons  will  come  along 
and  stir  the  matter  up,  and  men  will  be  maide  to  under- 


SLAVE   GIRLS  OF  CHICAGO.  S7 

Stand  that  if  they  want  to  enjoy  the  honors  or  emolu- 
ments of  office,  they  must  discharge  all  the  duties  of 
that  office,  whether  they  be  agreeable  or  not.  There 
are  few  questions  that  more  vitally  affect  the  State,  for 
children  growing  up  on  ihe  street  are  almost  certain  to 
become  criminals,  and  thus  a  menace  and  expense  to 
society.  Likewise,  the  toiling  of  women  and  children 
in  shops  amid  conditions  which  dwarf,  stupefy  and 
destroy,  must  produce  pauperism  and  crime,  and  it  is 
as  much  the  duty  of  the  State  to  prevent  these  as  it  is 
its  duty  to  repel  a  hostile  invasion. 

You  ask  whether  woman  should  be  paid  the  same 
wages  as  man  when  she  does  the  same  work  ?  To  this 
there  can  be  but  one  answer.  If  she  does  the  same 
quantity  and  quality  of  work  under  the  same  conditions 
as  a  man,  simple  justice  requires  that  she  should  be 
paid  the  same  wages.  To  deny  her  this  is  to  deny  her 
justice. 

In  answer  to  your  question:  "Are  not  the  wages  in 
many  lines  of  protected  manufacturing  and  mining 
industries  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  profits  of  the  em- 
ployers?'* I  will  simply  say  that  I  do  not  wish  to  dis- 
cuss the  tariff  here,  but  the  exposure  just  made  by  The 
Times,  as  well  as  the  facts  now  being  brought  out  before 
the  congressional  committee  in  New  York,  added  to 
what  was  already  known  in  regard  to  the  importation 
of  Italians,  Belgians,  Poles,  Hungarians,  etc.,  in  the 
manufacturing  and  mining  districts  of  the  East,  all  show 
conclusively  that  the  American  laborer  has  for  many 
years  had  to  compete  with  the  cheapest  kind  of  Euro- 
pean labor.     The  wages  in  the  shops  and  in  the  factories 


88 


LIVE  QUESTIONS. 


of  Chicago,  as  shown  by  The  Times,  were  in  many  cases 
not  fixed  with  reference  to  the  amount  of  protection, 
but  by  the  lowest  European  standard.  They  are  at 
starvation's  edge,  and  they  never  get  below  that  in 
Europe.  For  example,  $2,  $3,  and  $4  per  week  and  board 
oneself  for  ten  hours'  toil  a  day.  So  the  wages  paid  in 
the  cigar  manufactories  and  other  establishments  of  the 
East,  as  shown  by  the  congressional  investigation  now 
in  progress,  are  below  what  it  is  possible  for  an  Ameri- 
can to  live  on.  They  are  fixed,  not  with  reference  to 
the  tariff,  but  by  the  people  that  are  brought  over  here 
from  Europe.  It  is  almost  the  lowest  European  stand- 
ard. Establishments  that  used  to  pay  $10  a  week  to 
American  laborers  now  pay  $3  and  $4  to  imported 
Europeans  for  doing  the  same  work.  It  is  true  that  all 
establishments  do  not  employ  imported  laborers,  but 
enough  do  to  fix  the  standard  of  wages.  If  only  a  few 
establishments  in  the  same  line  get  their  work  done  for 
$4  a  week  by  foreigners,  this  will  become  the  standard 
all  along  the  line,  even  in  houses  employing  Americans, 
for  the  latter  can  not  pay  $10  and  compete  with  the 
former,  and  as  it  has  been  shown  that  there  is  scarcely  a 
line  of  industry  in  which  these  imported  laborers  have  not 
been  introduced,  it  follows  that  the  standard  of  wages 
has  been  largely  fixed  by  what  these  imported  people 
will  work  for. 

For  years  we  have  heard  of  the  Italians,  Poles,  Hun- 
garians, etc.,  who  were  imported  constantly  into  Penn- 
sylvania, and  in  many  cases  when  these  people  refused 
to  submit  to  further  reductions  of  wages  they  were  sim- 
ply discharged  and  their  places  filled  with  fresh  importa- 


SLAVE    GIRLS  OF  CHICAGO.  89 

tions.  So  that  now  Mr.  Povvderly  claims  that  almost  all 
American  citizens,  both  native-born  and  naturalized, 
have  been  driven  out  of  the  mines  and  the  great  manu- 
facturing establishments  of  that  great  State.  The  pro- 
prietors have  been  protected,  but  the  laborers  have  had 
to  Diove  on,  and  that,  too,  in  many  cases  by  the  assistance 
of  policemen's  clubs  and  Pinkerton  rifles. 

I  see  that  the  investigation  in  New  York  disclosed 
the  fact  that  our  estimable  protectionist  townsmen  who 
built  the  Texas  state-house,  sent  to  Scotland  for  most  of 
their  skilled  labor  and  employed  Texas  convicts  to  do 
the  unskilled  labor.  And  so  it  goes  all  along  the  line. 
There  seems  to  be  protection  for  everybody  but  the 
laborer,  and  he  is  gradually  getting  between  two  mill- 
stones— above  him  the  protective  tariff  makes  him  pay 
high  prices  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  while  below  him 
the  imported  laborer  is  steadily  and  surely  pulling  away 
the  foundations  on  which  he  stands.  If  this  process  is 
not  arrested,  then,  like  the  Indian,  the  American  laborer 
must  wither  from  the  land,  as  he  is  already  doing  in 
Pennsylvania  and  in  some  sections  of  the  East.  Legisla- 
tion, and  only  legislation,  can  arrest  this  process.  It  is 
easy  and  pleasant  to  talk  sympathetically  about  these 
matters  and  to  advance  beautiful  theories,  but  if  we 
want  to  do  practical  work  we  must  face  cold  facts. 

John  P.  Altgeld. 


go  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 

{^Pitblished  in  Be  I  ford's  Magazine  for  October,  iSSg-^ 

In  the  evolution  of  the  newspaper  from  the  occa- 
sional news-letter  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  the 
great  journal  of  to-day,  the  press  has  changed  from  a 
passive  instrument,  dependent  upon  and  voicing  only 
the  sentiments  of  an  individual,  to  a  kind  of  self-con- 
scious entity  which  is  bigger  than  any  individual;  an 
entity  which  Frederick  Knight  Hunt,  nearly  forty  years 
ago  in  England,  called  the  Fourth  Estate  of  the  Realm. 

The  successive  stages  in  this  development  may  be 
generalized  as,  first,  personal  organs;  second,  party 
organs;  and  lastly,  independent  journals. 

In  the  first  two  stages  it  was  still  an  instrument 
depending  upon  the  editor.  But  in  the  third  it  is  an 
institution  upon  which  the  editor  depends.  When  the 
paper  was  small  the  author  of  almost  every  article  was 
known  to  the  public.  The  editor  had  an  interest  in  the 
paper,  if  he  did  not  own  it  entirely.  His  name  appeared 
at  the  head  of  its  columns  as  its  editor;  and  he  wrote 
most,  if  not  everything,  that  appeared  in  it.  In  fact,  he 
held  himself  individually  responsible  for  everything,  and 
was  personally  known  to  nearly  all  who  read  the  paper. 
There  were  exceptions,  but  I  speak  of  the  rule. 

Thus  when,  near  the  close  of  the  last  century,  the 
A'ational  Gazette  persistently  attacked  Hamilton  and  the 
Federal  party,  the  country  turned  to  the  editor,  Philip 


A  NOW  YMO  US  JO  URN  A  LISM  A  XD  I TS  EFFE  CTS.     91 

Freneau.  When  Horace  Greeley  wrote  most  of  the 
matter  that  went  into  the  Mor,.ifig  Post  and  the  Log 
Cabin,  and  when  he  subsequently  founded  and  edited 
the  New  York  Tribune,  the  public  looked  to  Greeley. 
When  Thurlow  Weed  published  \.h.%  Albany  Eveni?ig  Jour- 
nal, its  articles  were  accepted  or  rejected  according  to 
the  confidence  had  in  Weed. 

So  of  the  country  newspapers  of  to-day;  the  person- 
nel of  the  editors,  who  are  generally  also  publishers  and 
men-of-all-work,  is  known  almost  co-extensively  with 
the  circulation  of  their  papers,  and  they  are  more  influ- 
ential in  the  community,  as  citizens,  than  are  the  writers 
on  great  city  journals. 

This  consciousness  of  the  editor,  that  his  identity  is 
fully  known  to  the  public,  creates  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility which,  in  time,  strengthens  and  develops  the  man. 
If,  in  moving  among  his  fellow-men,  he  feels  that  they 
know  exactly  what  he  has  said  and  done,  he  will  be  more 
candid;  he  will  learn  to  look  men  in  the  face;  he  will  be 
more  apt  to  stick  to  the  trutli  and  hold  to  what  is  right; 
he  will  be  more  ready  to  acknowledge  his  error  when 
wrong;  he  will  be  more  apt  to  keep  within  the  range  of 
the  sympathy  and  good  opinion  of  his  fellow-men. 
Instead  of  being  simply  an  editor,  he  will  continue  to  be 
a  man  among  men.  The  man  will  grow  as  well  as  the 
editor,  and  both  will  become  greater  than  is  possible 
where  there  is  only  a  one-sided  development. 

Consequently  we  find  that  the  earlier  newspaper 
writers  were  prominent  public  characters.  In  fact,  in 
the  end,  they  became  greater  in  the  public  eye  as  men 
than  as  editors.     The  man  outgrew  the  editor.     Instead 


92  LTVE    QUESTIONS. 

of  his  being  lost  in  tlie  newspaper,  as  is  now  the  case, 
the  newspaper  was  merged  in  the  man.  Being  thus 
greater  than  the  newspaper,  he  survived  connection 
with  it. 

Horace  Greeley  was  knou'n  to  the  whole  American 
people  as  a  great  character.  Even  if  the  paper  he 
founded  were  to  go  out  of  existence,  the  memory  of 
Greeley  could  not. 

Thurlow  Weed  became  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
and  influential  politicians  in  the  United  States — not  as 
an  editor,  but  as  a  man.  The  paper  was  only  the 
medium  through  which  he  expressed  his  thoughts.  The 
giant  could  not  hide  behind  his  sword.  How  many 
newspaper  editors  are  there  to-day  who  hide — and  suc- 
cessfully too — behind  their  papers? 

In  i860  the  majority  of  the  men  who  were  prominent 
in  national  affairs  had  been  connected  with  newspapers. 
There  are  not  so  many  now;  and,  as  a  rule,  the  news- 
paper editor  who  is  in  public  life  to-day  is  connected, 
not  with  the  large  city  papers,  except  where  he  is  a  pro- 
prietor, but  with  some  smaller  paper  which  is  known  to 
voice  only  his  sentiments. 

What  is  said  above  applies  equally  to  the  great  pub- 
lic men  of  the  old  world  who  were  newspaper  editors. 
For  whether  fomenting  a  revolution  in  France,  or 
defending  libel  prosecutions  in  England,  they  did  not 
hide  behind  their  papers,  but,  as  a  rule,  stood  erect 
"before  all  Israel  and  the  sun;"  and  while  their  papers 
are  forgotten,  the  men  are  not.  But  now  every  large 
newspaper  is  an  institution  which,  in  some  instances,  has 
more  than  fifty  different  persons  who  contribute  regu- 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.     93 

larly  to  its  columns.  All  these  write  anonymously.  The 
paper,  the  institution  only,  is  seen  and  known.  The 
name  of  the  man  claiming  to  be  the  legal  owner  or  pub- 
lisher, may  also  be  known;  but  the  editors — the  authors 
of  the  various  articles,  comments,  criticisms,  and  state- 
ments— are  not  known,  not  even  collectively;  much  less 
is  it  known  who  is  the  author  of  any  particular  article, 
statement,  or  comment.  So  far  as  the  public  and  the 
persons  directly  affected  by  anything  contained  in  the 
'  paper  are  concerned,  it  is  all  anonymous.  Now,  there 
is  a  universal  contempt  felt  for  the  man  who  writes  an 
anonymous  letter  and  sends  it  through  the  mail;  and, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  no  one  expresses  more  con- 
tempt and  indignation  at  the  cowardice  and  want  of 
manhood  of  the  anonymous  letter-writer  than  the  aver- 
age newspaper  editor,  who  not  only  makes  his  living  by 
anonymous  writing,  but  who  would  not  be  willing  to 
sign  his  name  to  one-half  of  the  articles  he  publishes. 
The  moral,  or  rather  the  immoral,  effect  of  anonymous 
writing  on  the  writer  himself  must  be  the  same  in  all 
cases  where  he  conceals  his  identity  because  of  an 
unwillingness  to  be  known  as  the  author  of  the  senti- 
ments expressed,  whether  he  publishes  them  in  a  news- 
paper or  sends  them  through  the  mail.  In  each  case 
there  is  a  hiding — a  st-  nding  behind  a  hedge,  and  throw- 
ing missiles  at  people  who  may  be  traveling  along  the 
king's  highway;  in  neither  case  will  the  act  tend  to 
develop  strength  of  character,  although  he  may  write 
ably  and  say  smart  things. 

When,  therefore,  the   editor  was,  so  to  say,  relieved 
of  the  moral  responsibility  which  comes  from  having  to 


94  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

look  people  in  the  face,  feeling  that  they  knew  what  you 
have  said;  when  an  inducement  was  almost  held  out  to 
him  to  be  careless,  or  reckless,  or  to  give  play  to  his 
prejudices  and  vent  to  his  spleen;  when,  in  short,  he  was 
put  in  the  position  of  hiding  while  throwing  missiles, 
and  kept  in  that  attitude  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other,  then  the  period  in  which  great  characters  were 
developed  in  the  newspaper  offices  came  to  an  end.  At 
present  we  see  only  a  great  paper.  The  men — that  is, 
the  editorial  writers — are  neither  seen  nor  known.  They 
may  be  changed  with  almost  the  same  facility  as  the 
type-setters,  and,  like  the  type-setters,  they  acquire  no 
individuality  by  which  they  are  known  to  the  public. 
They  are  not  even  forgotten,  because  they  are  never 
known,  although  the  proprietor  may  wield  even  greater 
influence  than  formerly. 

The  newspaper  men  of  to-day  have  as  much  natural 
ability,  as  high  aspirations,  as  much  common  honesty, 
and  as  strong  an  inclination  to  do  right  as  had  those  of 
three-quarters  of  a  century  ago.  In  fact,  it  must  be  said 
of  the  rank  and  file  of  newspaper  men,  that  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  any  other  calling  contains  so  large  a  per- 
centage of  young  men  who  possess,  in  the  highest  degree, 
the  attributes  necessary  to  achieve  success  and  eminence 
in  the  world.  As  a  rule  they  are  intelligent,  industrious, 
tireless,  plucky,  practical  and  ambitious,  and,  in  moral 
character,  will  compare  favorably  with  the  devotees  of 
any  other  profession;  and,  if  the  conditions  of  news- 
paper work  were  the  same  now  as  they  were  earlier  in 
the  century,  the  newspaper  fraternity  would  develop 
more  great  men  and  furnish  more  great  public  charac- 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.     95 

ters  than  are  furnished  by  any  other  class.  But  the 
blight — the  weakening  influence — of  anonymous  writing 
settles  upon  all,  especially  those  connected  with  the 
large  city  papers;  and,  as  a  rule,  they  move  along  com- 
paratively unknown,  and  die  unhonored  by  the  public, 
never  establishing  a  reputation  commensurate  with  their 
ability  or  with  the  great  amount  of  work  they  do — an 
amount  of  work  which,  under  more  favorable  conditions, 
would  win  them  immortality. 

It  is  true,  there  are  a  few  newspaper  writers  in  the 
United  States  who  have  become  widely  known,  but  they 
did  not  accomplish  this  by  anonymous  writing;  on  the 
contrary,  their  fame  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the  extent 
to  which  they  signed  their  names  to  their  articles. 

The  effect  of  this  anonymous  writing  is  to  give  us  what 
is  practically  an  irresponsible  press.  To  be  sure,  theo- 
retically, the  owner  or  publisher  of  the  paper  is  respon- 
sible for  everything  that  appears  in  it;  but  practically, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  this  amounts  to  but  little.  If 
the  facts  in  a  particular  matter  are  carelessly  or  incor- 
rectly stated,  whereby  a  common  citizen  is  injured,  or  if 
some  one  connected  with  the  paper  maliciously  makes 
insinuations  which  set  people  to  talking  about,  and  thus 
ruin,  the  character  of  a  private  person,  the  owner  of  the 
paper  is  theoretically  liable.  But  practically  this 
amounts  to  nothing;  for  all  the  injured  party  can  do  is 
to  commence  a  libel  suit.  After  a  year  elapses  this  suit 
is  brought  to  trial,  when  the  tables  are  turned,  as  it  were, 
and  in  order  to  see  what  damages,  if  any,  should  be 
given,  the  whole  life  of  the  complainant  is  overhauled; 
the  worst  construction  possible  is  sought  to  be  put  upon 


96  LIVE   QUESTIOX^. 

everything  he  has  done.  Money  and  power,  with  all 
the  agencies  they  control,  combine  to  break  him  down; 
and  if,  after  going  through  this  ordeal,  a  verdict  is  ren- 
dered for  the  plaintiff,  the  case  is  carried  to  the  higher 
courts  and,  as  a  rule,  is  reversed  and  sent  back  to  be 
tried  over.  In  most  cases,  after  years  of  vexation  and 
expense,  the  injured  party  gets  nothing.  If,  however,  in 
the  end  a  judgment  should  be  obtained,  it  will  not  pay 
for  the  vexation,  the  loss  of  time,  and  the  expense  occa- 
sioned by  the  suit.  So  that,  as  a  rule,  a  libel  suit  is  worse 
than  a  farce  for  the  injured  person.  It  is  a  remedy 
which  kills  the  party  using  it  and  inflicts  comparatively 
little  injury  on  the  defendant.  The  malicious,  the  men- 
dacious, and  the  reckless  have  practically  nothing  to 
restrain  them. 

Roscoe  Conklingonce  said:  "A  thief  breaks  into  your 
house,  steals  your  watch,  and  goes  to  Sing  Sing.  The 
newspaper  man  breaks  into  the  casket  which  contains 
your  most  precious  treasure, —  your  reputation, —  and 
goes  unscathed  before  the  law." 

It  may  be  said  that  publishing  a  newspaper  is  a  busi- 
ness enterprise,  and  that  self-interest  will  induce  its 
owners  to  see  to  it  that  nothing  but  the  truth  is  told. 
This  looks  plausible,  but  experience  has  shown  that  it  is 
not  true.  There  is  scarcely  an  issue  of  a  great  city  news- 
paper that  does  not  contain  an  article  which,  either 
through  an  imperfect  statement  of  facts,  or  an  insinua- 
tion or  false  accusation,  injures  some  private  citizen, 
who  practically  has  no  remedy. 

A  writer  in  the  North  Atnerican  Review  recently  said: 
"  The  newspaper  usurps  the  functions  of  judge,  jury,  and 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.     97 

executioner,  and  often  adds  to  these  the  office  of  the 
police  detective  and  prosecuting  attorney.  .  .  .  The 
glass  through  which  he  (the  newspaper  man)  peers  is 
anything  but  a  transparent  medium.  It  becomes  a  lens 
that  distorts  and  perverts  the  things  behind  it.  The 
best  men  in  journalism  are  not  proof  against  the  taint  of 
its  bad  tendencies.  The  system  is  the  criminal^  and 
moulds  its  members.  All  that  can  be  generalized  is  that 
honorable  journalists,  on  the  whole,  try  to  practice  the 
better  side  of  the  profession,  and  that  the  unprincipled 
avail  themselves  to  the  full  of  its  dangerous  powers." 

Possibly,  when  all  things  are  considered,  it  is  best 
that  libel  suits  should  in  many  cases  be  abortive;  other- 
wise a  newspaper  might  be  overwhelmed  with  libel  suits 
based  on  trivial  errors;  or  might  be  harassed  by  people 
who  want  to  extort  money.  And  it  should  be  added 
that  no  measure  calculated  to  harass  or  cripple  the  press 
can  be  tolerated.  The  press  must  not  only  remain  free 
but  have  all  reasonable  latitude.  But  the  public  is 
entitled  to  fair  play,  as  well  as  the  press;  and  it  does 
not  follow  because  one  remedy  does  not  seem  well  suited 
to  protect  the  public  that  therefore  the  public  is  not 
entitled  to  any  protection.  Would  it  be  asking  too  much 
to  require  a  signature  to  everything  that  appears  in  a 
newspaper,  so  that  the  public  may  always  have  some 
guaranty  of  good  faith,  and  know  who  it  is  that  is  talk- 
ing, and  that  when  anything  is  said  against  a  man  it  will 
not  seem  as  if  an  irresponsible  institution  were  attack- 
ing him  in  the  dark  ? 

In  short,  while  discouraging  any  attempt  to  get 
money  out  of  the  newspaper  man's  pockets,  is  it  asking 


98  LIVE   QUESTIOXS. 

too  mudi  to  require  him  to  do  what  all  other  men, 
except  criminals,  have  to  do,  and  that  is,  work  in  ilie 
light  of  day? — to  stand  up  and  be  known  and  seen? 

Of  course  some  of  the  newspaper  people  will  object — 
will  pronounce  it  impossible — and,  as  usual,  predict  all 
sorts  of  calamities  as  the  result  of  such  a  requirement. 
Especially  will  this  be  true  of  those  that  "avail  them- 
selves to  the  full  of  its  dangerous  powers."  No  class 
exercising  a  dangerous  power  or  accustomed  to  an  unre- 
stricted license  ever  looked  with  favor  on  a  proposition 
to  restrict  that  license  or  power. 

One  of  the  leading  dailies  of  Chicago,  in  discussing 
the  proposition  to  require  a  signature  to  every  article  in 
a  paper,  said:  '*  The  power  of  the  press  is  not  a  danger- 
ous and  unrestrained  power;  the  freedom  of  the  press, 
like  the  freedom  of  the  winds,  corrects  and  purifies, 
because  it  is  free.  A  newspaper  pays  for  its  errors  and 
blunders,  and  is  Subject  to  the  great  law  of  compensa- 
tion as  an  individual  is.  It  has  created  here  in  this 
country  a  higher  law,  to  which  it  is  itself  subject  and 
whose  penalties  it  can  not  escape.  In  this  free  land  of 
ours  it  comes  to  pass  that  there  is  a  public  opinion — 
that  sober,  slow  verdict  of  the  people — that  is  over  all 
of  us;  parties  and  syndicates,  great  statesmen  and  great 
newspapers  as  well,  we  all  must  bow  to  it,  and  because 
of  its  freedom,  we  all  do  bow  to  it." 

Here  are  the  old  arguments  that  have  been  repeated 
for  centuries,  every  time  that  it  was  proposed  to  have 
the  State  interfere  for  the  protection  of  the  weak  against 
the  assaults  of  the  strong. 

ist.  "There  is  a  higher  law  to  punish  wrong-doing, 
therefore  leave  hands  off." 


A  NON  YMO  US  JO  URN  A  LISM  A  ND  I TS  EFFE  CTS.     99 

Now  suppose  a  man  with  a  club  habitually  secretes 
himself  in  a  dark  place  and  batters  out  the  brains  of 
every  unsuspecting  editor  who  may  come  that  way. 
There  is  a  higher  law  which  will  punish  this  man,  but 
will  the  living  editor  be  content  with  this  assurance,  or 
will  he  insist  that  at  least  an  effort  ought  to  be  made  to 
discover  the  identity  of  the  man  with  the  club? 

2d.  "It  is  not  necessary  to  do  anything;  for  an 
enlightened  self-interest,  open  competition,  a  healthy 
public  sentiment,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that 
wrong-doing  must  be  paid  for  and  will  sooner  or  later 
be  punished  are  alone  sufficient  to  regulate  the  whole 
matter." 

Look  at  this  a  moment.  Is  there  an  instance  in  all 
human  experience  where  it  was  found  satisfactory  to 
have  the  strong  alone — whether  good  or  bad — say  how 
far  they  should  go  in  dealing  with  the  weak?  If  human 
selfishness  always  has  gone  to  unreasonable  lengths  when 
it  had  a  chance,  why  expect  it  to  restrain  itself  in  this 
case?  As  to  public  sentiment,  in  cases  of  attacks  on  or 
insinuations  against  individuals,  the  newspaper  creates 
all  the  sentiment  there  is;  hence  this  will  not  be 
restraining. 

Further,  is  it  not  known  now  that  wrong-doing  must 
be  paid  for  and  will  be  punished?  And  if  this  knowl- 
edge has  not  been  and  is  not  now  sufficient  to  protect 
private  individuals,  how  can  we  expect  it  to  do  so  in 
the  future? 

The  fifth  maxim  for  journalists, recently  laid  down  by 
y[x.  Dana,  is:  "  Never  attack  the  weak  or  the  defenseless, 
either  by  argument,  by  invective,  or  by  ridicule,  unless 
there  is  some  absolute  public  necessity  for  so  doing." 


lOO  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

Without  inquiring  why  tlie  absolutely  defenseless 
should  ever  be  attacked,  and  admitti-ng  that  some 
journalists  do  not  do  so,  I  will  ask:  How  long  will  it  take 
an  unpi-incipled  newspaper  man — and  there  will  be 
such  till  the  millennium — who  wanted  a  sensation  to  sell 
his  paper,  or  who  had  a  grudge  against  some  individual 
— how  long  would  it  take  him  to  make  up  his  mind  that 
the  public  necessity  existed? 

The  trouble  with  all  these  arguments  is  that  they  rest 
on  a  wrong  principle.  One  of  the  parties  affected  is  not 
represented  or  given  a  hearing;  whereas  rules  to  regu- 
late the  conduct  between  individuals  should  be  fixed 
with  reference  to  the  interests,  and  by  the  voice  of  both, 
and  not  by  the  whim,  caprice,  or  arbitrary  dictation  of 
the  stronger. 

Years  ago,  when  it  was  first  proposed  to  subject  the 
railroads  to  reasonable  regulation,  the  railroad  people 
and  their  friends  scoffed  at  the  idea.  The  most  consid- 
erate of  them  argued:  ''Railroads  are  private  enter- 
prises, supported  by  private  capital,  with  which  the  pub- 
lic has  no  right  to  interfere.  Besides,  they  are  subject 
to  the  laws  of  competition,  which  alone  will  give  all  the 
regulation  necessary.  Further,  they  are  dependent  on 
the  public  for  support,  and  an  intelligent  self-interest 
will  insure  fair  dealing  with  the  public;  any  interference 
by  the  State  must  be  disastrous,"  etc.  And  they  asked: 
"  Can  you  run  the  railroads  better  than  the  experienced 
men  who  are  now  running  them?'* 

But  notwithstanding  these  arguments  the  public  felt 
that,  wliile  railroads  were  a  necessity  and  must  be  pro- 
tected, and    while   they   ought   not    to  be   harassed  by 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.     lOI 

unreasonable  interference,  yet  some  measure  of  protec- 
tion for  the  public  was  necessary;  and  the  answer  in 
regard  to  running  a  road  was:  "  No,  we  don't  claim  to  be 
able  to  run  a  road;  we  concede  that  you  can  do  that  bet- 
ter than  we  can,  and  we  want  you  to  do  it;  we  simply 
insist  on  some  measure  of  protection  against  the  abuse 
of  the  power  in  your  hands."  As  a  result,  measure  after 
measure  was  passed,  ending  finally  in  the  Interstate 
Law.  At  first  these  acts  produced  little  effect,  as  is 
nearly  always  the  case  with  new  legislation;  but  at  pres- 
ent they  are  beginning  to  be  respected,  and,  what  is  more, 
the  railroads  now  favor  reasonable  regulation. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  if  every  person  writing  even 
a  squib  for  a  newspaper  had  to  sign  his  name  to  it,  there 
would  be  greater  care  taken  to  learn  the  facts  and  to 
state  them  correctly.  Every  writer  would  become  more 
careful  and  read  his  articles  over  a  second  time  before 
printing  them,  thus  greatly  improving  the  character  of 
newspapers  by  making  them  more  reliable,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  it  would  be  a  protection  to  the  private  indi- 
vidual. 

Certain  it  is  that  it  would  make  all  newspaper  writ- 
ers stand  on  their  own  merit  with  the  public,  and 
would  enable  those  that  have  superior  abilities  to  get 
credit  for  their  work,  which  they  do  not  get  with  the 
public  under  the  present  system  of  anonymous  writing. 

It  is  true  that  in  1850  a  law  was  passed  in  France 
requiring  a  signature  to  every  article  in  a  newspaper, 
and  that  it  did  not  produce  any  great  results.  But  this 
signifies  little  under  the  circumstances,  for  it  was 
enacted  not  as  an   independent  measure  conceived  in  a 


102  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

spirit  of  fairness,  but  as  a  part  of  an  arbitrary  system 
intended  to  harass  and,  so  far  as  possible,  crush  the 
press.  It  went  almost  hand  in  hand  with  a  heavy  stamp 
tax,  a  government  censor  and  the  dungeon.  Requiring 
a  signature  only  made  it  easier  for  the  Government  to 
find  the  writer  and  put  him  into  jail.  Therefore,  it  was 
natural  that  the  whole  newspaper  fraternity  should 
labor  to  defeat  the  law  by  the  use  of  fictitious  names, 
and  in  every  other  manner  possible.  In  addition,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  many  of  the  most  beneficial 
measures  in  the  world's  history  were  failures  when  first 
tried. 

But  here  the  conditions  are  different.  ]Many  news- 
paper men  already  admit  the  evil  effects  of  impersonal 
journalism  and  urge  a  change  in  that  regard.  '\\\q  Jour- 
nalist oi  October  6,  1888,  had  a  strong  editorial,  advocat- 
ing a  signature  to  every  article.  Among  other  things 
it  said:  "Few  men  would  be  willing  to  send  out  state- 
ments over  their  own  signatures  which  they  knew  to  be 
untrue,  a  temptation  which  is  very  strong  when  the 
writer  is  hiding  behind  the  cloak  of  anonymity.  It 
would  encourage  better  work.  If  a  man  is  certain  that 
a  story  is  to  be  known  as  his  work,  he  will  take  more 
care  in  the  writing.  Again,  if  a  writer  succeeds  in  mak- 
ing a  reputation,  the  paper  gains  the  additional  eclat  of 
having  such  a  man  in  its  employ.  The  best  work  is 
almost  always  done  by  men  who  sign.  Sporadic  cases 
of  anonymous  excellence  are  seen  in  every  paper,  but 
the  men  who  sign  are  the  men  whose  work  is  read,  and 
w^ho  make  an  impression  on  the  public  mind.  This 
is  not  altogether  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  work  of 


ANONYMOUS  JOURNALISM  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.     103 

men  who  are  strong-  enough  to  force  signature.  It  is 
partly  because  a  man  who  signs  feels  that  he  is  bound 
in  duty  to  himself  to  keep  up  a  certain  average  of 
excellence  in  his  work.  He  is  the  proprietor  of  a 
'brand,' and  his  goods  must  be  kept  up  to  sample,  or 
the  future  value  of  his  'brand  '  is  gone.  The  question 
of  signature  lies  largely  with  the  writers  themselves. 
If  there  were  a  general  insistence  upon  the  matter,  the 
papers  would  give  in,  and  once  the  custom  was  adopted 
it  would  never  be  abandoned." 

I  will  simply  add  that,  as  the  better  class  of  journal- 
ists are  already  in  sympathy  with  the  idea,  we  may  safely 
assume  that  if  a  signature  be  required  by  law  to  every 
article — not  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  Govern- 
ment to  imprison  the  writer,  as  in  France — but  simply  to 
ensure  care  and  good  faith  on  the  part  of  the  writer  and 
fair  play  to  the  public,  there  will  be  but  little  opposition, 
and,  instead  of  being  crippled,  the  press  will  command 
more  confidence  and  wield  more  influence  for  good  than 
now;  and  editorial  writers,  instead  of  being  unknown 
operatives,  will  establish  a  reputation  equal  to  their 
labor  and  ability,  while  the  private  individual  will  feel 
that  if  he  is  to  be  attacked,  it  must  be  done  in  the  light 
of  day. 

John  P.  Altgeld. 


I04  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER. 

{Published  in  the  Forum  for  February,  iSgo.) 

The  questions  whether  immigration  shall  be  en- 
couraged or  restricted,  and  whether  naturalization  shall 
be  made  more  difficult  or  not,  must  be  considered,  both 
from  a  political  and  from  an  industrial  point  of  view; 
and  in  each  case  it  is  necessary  to  glance  back  and  see 
what  have  been  the  character,  the  conduct,  and  the 
political  leaning  of  the  immigrant,  and  what  he  has 
done  to  develop  and  enrich  our  ceuntry.  Has  he  been 
law-abiding,  industrious  and  patriotic,  and  is  the  gov- 
ernment indebted  to  him  for  anything;  or  is  it  a  case  of 
a  spoilt  pauper  child  housed,  fed  and  clothed  in  a  fine 
Christian  uniform,  all  at  the  expense  of  native  Amer- 
icans, and  to  no  purpose? 

We  will  look  at  the  political  side  first,  and,  as  our 
space  is  limited,  we  will  go  back  only  to  i860,  calling 
attention,  however,  to  the  fact  that  up  to  that  time,  no 
matter  from  what  cause,  the  immigration  had  been 
almost  entirely  to  the  Northern  and  free  States,  and  not 
to  the  slave  States,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  figures  about 
to  be  given.  These,  when  carefully  examined  in  connec- 
tion with  election  returns,  will  show  that  but  for  the 
assistance  of  the  immigrant  the  election  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  as  president  of  the  United  States  would  have 
been  an   impossibility,  and  that  had  the  cry,  "America 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  105 

for  the  Americans,"  prevailed  at  an  earlier  period  of 
our  history,  the  nineteenth  century  would  never  have 
seen  the  great  free  republic  we  see,  and  the  shadow  of 
millions  of  slaves  would  to-day  darken  and  curse  the 
continent. 

I  will  cite  no  doubtful  authority,  but  will  take  as  a 
basis  the  United  States  census  of  i860.  The  total  pop- 
ulation of  the  States  was  31,183,744,  of  whom  4,099,152 
were  foreign-born,  and  of  the  latter  only  216,730  were 
to  be  found  in  all  the  eleven  States  which  seceded.  The 
remaining  States  had  a  total  population  of  22,313,997,  of 
whom  3,882,422,  or  a  little  over  one-sixth  were  actually 
foreign-born.  To  these  we  must  add  their  children, 
who,  though  native-born,  yet,  as  a  rule,  held  the  same 
views,  were  controlled  by  the  same  motives  and  influ- 
ences, spoke  the  same  language,  and  generally  acted 
with  their  elders;  who,  in  short,  for  all  practical 
purposes,  and  especially  for  our  purpose,  must  be 
treated  as  a  part  of  the  immigrant  population.  If  we 
add  two  children  for  each  foreign-born  person,  we  find 
that  fully  one-half  of  the  population  in  the  States  that 
remained  true  to  the  Union,  consisted  of  the  foreign- 
born  and  their  children,  and  was  made  up  chiefly  of 
Germans,  Scandinavians  and  Irish. 

The  Scandinavians  have  always,  nearly  to  a  man, 
voted  the  Republican  ticket.  The  Germans,  likewise, 
were  nearly  all  Republicans.  In  fact,  the  States  having 
either  a  large  Scandinavian  or  a  large  German  popula- 
tion have  been  distinguished  as  the  banner  Republican 
States.  Notably  is  this  true  of  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  Minne- 
sota and   Michigan,  which  have  a  large   Scandinavian 


io6  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

population;  and  of  Illinois,  Ohio^  and  Pennsylvania, 
which  have  a  very  large  German  population.  The  Irish 
more  generally  voted  the  Democratic  ticket,  but  were 
not  united;  and  in  New  York,  where  they  were  most 
numerous,  they  have  repeatedly  given  the  Republican 
ticket  substantial  aid.  Taking  the  States  in  detail,  Iowa 
had  a  total  population  of  674,913.  Of  these,  106,077,  or 
about  one-sixth,  were  foreign-born,  and  nearly  all  were 
Germans  and  Scandinavians,  who  to  a  man  voted  the 
Republican  ticket.  The  total  vote  cast  for  president  in 
Iowa  in  i860,  was  128,331,  of  which  Lincoln  received 
70,409,  giving  him  a  plurality  over  Douglas  of  15,298. 
Now,  if  simply  the  actual  foreign-born  vote  had  been 
left  out,  it  would  have  amounted  to  one-sixth  of  the 
whole,  or  21,388.  These  would  nearly  all  have  been 
taken  from  Lincoln's  vote,  which  would  thus  be  reduced 
to  less  than  50,000,  leaving  to  Douglas  a  plurality  of 
over  5,000;  and  if,  instead  of  substracting  only  the  for- 
eign-born vote,  we  were  to  subtract  the  vote  which  for 
our  purpose  must  be  regarded  as  immigrant,  Lincoln's 
vote  would  be  reduced  to  less  than  40,000. 

Wisconsin  had  a  total  population  of  775,881.  Of 
these,  276,967,  or  a  little  over  35  per  cent.,  were  foreign- 
born,  nearly  all  Germans  and  Scandinavians,  and  they 
supported  the  Republican  ticket.  The  total  vote  of 
Wisconsin  in  that  year  was  152,180,  of  wdiich  Lincoln 
received  86,110,  giving  him  a  plurality  over  Douglas  of 
21,089.  Now,  if  the  foreign-born  vote  were  omitted,  the 
total  vote  would  be  reduced  by  about  35  per  cent.,  or 
52,263;  and  nearly  the  whole  of  this  would  have  to  be 
deducted  from  Lincoln's  vote,  thus  not  only  wiping  out 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  1 07 

his  plurality,  but  giving  Douglas  a  plurality  of  nearly 
30,000 — this  by  deducting  only  the  actual  foreign-born 
vote,  and  not  the  additional  vote  which,  as  we  have  seen 
should  be  included. 

Michigan  had  in  that  year  a  total  population  of  749,- 
113,  Of  these,  149,093,  or  about  one-fifth,  were  foreign- 
born,  nearly  all  Scandinavians,  Hollanders  and  Ger- 
mans, and  almost  solidly  Republican.  The  total  vote  of 
Michigan  was  154,747,  of  which  Lincoln  received  88,480, 
giving  him  a  plurality  over  Douglas  of  23,423.  If  the 
foreign-born  vote,  amounting  to  about  one-fifth,  or 
31,000,  be  left  out,  nearly  all  the  loss  must  fail  upon  Lin- 
coln's vote,  giving  Douglas  a  plurality. 

Illinois  had  a  population  of  1,711,951,  of  whom  324,- 
643,  or  almost  one-fifth,  were  foreign-born.  Of  these, 
87,573  were  Irish,  the  remainder  nearly  all  Germans  and 
Scandinavians,  adherents  of  the  Republican  party.  Of 
the  total  vote  of  Illinois,  338,693,  Lincoln  received  172,- 
161,  giving  him  a  plurality  over  Douglas  of  11,946.  If 
the  actual  foreign-born  vote  is  to  be  eliminated,  that 
reduces  the  total  nearly  one-fifth,  or  upward  of  66,000. 
Supposing  the  Irish  foreign-born  vote  to  have  been 
solidly  Democratic,  which  it  was  not,  about  40,000  would 
still  have  to  be  deducted  from  Lincoln's  vote;  this  would 
not  only  wipe  out  his  plurality,  but  would  give  a  very 
large  plurality  to  Douglas. 

Ohio's  population  was  2,339,500.  Of  these,  328,249, 
or  about  one-seventh,  were  foreign-born;  76,826  being 
Irish,  and  the  remainder  mostly  Germans,  who,  as  a  rule, 
were  Republicans.  The  total  vote  of  Ohio  was  442,441, 
of    which    Lincoln    received    221,610 — a    plurality  over 


lo8  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

Douglas  of  34,378.  If  the  foreign-born  vole  liad  been 
omitted,  the  total  would  have  been  reduced  by  nearly 
one-seventh,  or  about  63,200.  Assuming  that  most  of 
the  Irish  were  Democrats  and  voted  for  Douglas,  nearly 
50,000  votes  would  still  have  to  be  deducted  from  Mr. 
Lincoln's  total,  which  would  give  the  State  to  Douglas. 

These  five  States  alone  are  sufficient  to  demonstrate 
the  situation;  for  if  Lincoln  had  lost  them  and  carried 
the  other  States  in  the  Republican  column,  he  would 
have  had  only  129  electoral  votes,  while  he  needed  151. 
But  the  facts  are  that  in  every  State  carried  by  Lincoln 
there  was  a  large  foreign  population,  which  was  mostly, 
and  in  some  States  entirely,  Republican,  and  which  con- 
tinued to  be  Republican  down  to  a  very  recent  date;  and 
if  the  vote  of  this  class  had  been  omitted  in  i860,  it 
would  have  reduced  Lincoln's  vote  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  defeat  him  in  most  of  the  States  that  he  carried.  I 
am  speaking  only  of  the  foreign-born  voters;  but,  as 
already  shown,  to  these  should  be  added  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  people  who,  although  native-born,  are  of 
foreign-born  parentage,  and  must  be  considered  with 
them  in  viewing  the  general  political  course  of  immi- 
grants. It  is  an  indisputable  fact  that  the  vote  of  the 
naturalized  citizen  and  of  his  son,  has  been  a  most 
powerful  and  indispensable  factor  in  giving  the  Repub- 
lican party  the  control  of  the  government;  and  even  to- 
day its  power  and  popularity  are  greatest  in  those  States 
in  which  there  is  a  large  naturalized  vote. 

The  eleven  States  that  in  1861  hoisted  the  flag  of 
secession  had  a  population  of  8,726,644.  Of  these,  only 
216,730,  or  about  2^2  per  cent.,  were  foreign-born,  and 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  109 

they  were,  subsequently,  found  to  be  Unionists.  The 
men  who  sought  to  destroy  our  institutions,  who  pro- 
claimed the  principle  of  inequality,  who  insisted  that 
the  strong  have  a  divine  right  to  the  fruit  of  the  poor 
man's  labor,  and  who  finally  fired  upon  the  flag  of  the 
Republic,  were  not  only  Americans,  but  they  were  the 
sons  of  Americans;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  heavy 
German  population  of  northern  Kentucky  and  of  Mis- 
souri, by  their  adherence  to  the  Union,  turned  the  scale 
and  prevented  two  great  States  from  giving  their  pow- 
erful aid  to  the  Confederacy.  The  great  majority  of 
those  that  were  Americans  and  sons  of  Americans  in 
these  two  States  were  in  favor  of  secession.  Then, 
when  the  war  began,  those  Northern  States  that  had 
the  largest  foreign-born  population  furnished  the  larg- 
est quota  of  soldiers  to  the  Union  armies.  Even  Mis- 
souri contributed  nearly  200,000  men,  although  it  was 
the  scene  of  repeated  raids,  during  which  a  portion  of 
its  population,  called  by  the  Southern  leaders  "damned 
Dutch  Unionists,'^  was  made  to  pay  dearly  for  its  patri- 
otism. The  records  of  the  War  Department  show  that, 
of  the  2,678,967  men  that  from  first  to  last  were  enlisted 
in  the  Union  armies,  494,900  were  entered  on  the  rec- 
ords as  of  foreign  nationality.  No  doubt  some  of  these 
were  native-born,  but  not  very  many,  for,  as  a  rule,  the 
native-born  recruits  spoke  the  English  language  and 
were  booked  as  Americans.  How  many  of  these  there 
were  we  can  not  tell  exactly,  but,  considering  the  fact 
that  nearly  half  of  the  population  was  of  foreign 
nationality,  and  that  recruits  generally  came  from  the 
common  people,  there  is  no  question  but  that  one-half 


no  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

of  the  men  who  enlisted  in  the  Union  armies  were 
either  foreign-born  or  of  foreign-born  parentage. 
These  would  not  have  been  here  to  enter  our  armies  but 
for  immigration,  and  better  soldiers  never  marched  to 
the  music  of  war.  There  is  not  a  swamp  or  field  or 
dark  ravine  where  treason  made  a  stand,  but  is  covered 
with  the  graves  of  Germans  and  of  Scandinavians  who 
died  for  the  principle  of  equal  rights.  Though  the 
Irish  more  generally  voted  the  Democratic  ticket,  yet 
their  patriotism  was  prompt  to  respond  to  the  call  of 
their  adopted  country,  and  there  is  not  a  battle-field 
where  blood  was  shed  for  the  Union  that  has  not  the 
bones  of  Irishmen  rotting  upon  it. 

Again,  material  resources  are  as  necessary  for  the 
prosecution  of  a  great  war  as  are  men,  for  the  latter 
can  do  nothing  without  equipment,  food,  arms  and 
munitions  of  war.  When  the  Rebellion  collapsed,  the 
South  had  yet  large  armies  of  men,  but  its  resources 
were  exhausted.  It  had  no  shoes,  no  food,  no  arms  for 
its  soldiers.  It  had  not,  within  all  its  boundaries,  suflfi- 
cient  ammunition  to  fight  a  great  battle.  The  North, 
on  the  contrary,  had  yet  inexhaustible  resources,  for 
which  it  was  largely  indebted  to  the  sober,  steady, 
intelligent  industry  and  frugality  of  its  immigrant  pop- 
ulation; for  those  States  in  which  this  population  was  the 
largest  were  found  to  possess  the  best  agriculture,  the 
finest  cities,  the  most  shops,  the  largest  factories  and 
the  fullest  warehouses.  Further,  the  labor  of  building 
the  great  railway  systems  of  our  land,  which  are  so 
necessary  for  the  development  of  a  country,  and  for  the 
rapid  concentration  of  men  and  material  in  time  of  war, 
was  almost  entirely  done  by  these  people. 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  m 

Now,  if  Kentucky  and  Missouri  had  joined  the  Con- 
federacy, and  if  the  Northern  States  had  not  possessed 
the  incalculable  strength  in  both  men  and  material 
resources  that  they  got  through  the  naturalized  citizen 
and  his  children,  they  would  not  only  have  been  unable 
to  subdue  the  South,  but  they  would  have  been  unable 
successfully  to  resist  Southern  aggression;  and  some 
Southern  colonel  would  to-day  be  calling  the  roll  of  his 
slaves  in  the  shadow  of  Bunker  Hill  monument,  for  the 
country  could  not  permanently  have  remained  part  slave 
and  part  free. 

I  do  not  claim  that  the  foreigner  gave  to  the  country 
new  ideas,  nor  do  I  wish  in  any  manner  to  belittle  the 
great  achievements  of  the  native  Americans  of  the  North; 
I  am  simply  directing  attention  to  the  fact  that,  stand' 
ing  alone,  they  could  not  have  elected  Lincoln,  could 
not  have  successfully  resisted  Southern  aggression,  and 
could  not  have  put  down  the  Rebellion;  and  that  it  was 
the  naturalized  citizen  and  his  children  who,  by  joining 
hands  with  them,  turned  the  scale  in  favor  of  the  ideas 
and  the  institutions  of  the  North,  and  thus  directly 
helped  to  shape  the  destiny  of  our  country. 

In  this  connection,  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the 
remarkable  historical  fact  that  the  great  political  party 
of  the  country  that  held  out  a  friendly  hand  to  the  immi- 
grant, and  that  favored  and  secured  liberal  naturaliza- 
tion laws,  so  that  the  new-comer  could,  in  a  reasonable 
time,  become  a  citizen  and  voter,  has  been  all  along 
opposed  and  repeatedly  defeated  by  these  very  natural- 
ized voters;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  great  political 
party — first  Federal,  then  Whig,  and  lastly  Republican 


112  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

— from  whose  ranks  has  always  come  the  opposition  to 
a  liberal  naturalization  law  and  to  make  the  new-comer  a 
voter,  and  from  whose  ranks  to-day  comes,  with  increas- 
ing frequency,  theory  of  "America  for  the  Americans,"  is 
the  very  party  which  has  all  along  received  by  far  the 
greater  portion  of  this  naturalized  vote,  was  enabled  by 
the  aid  of  this  very  vote  to  keep  control  of  the  govern- 
ment for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  to-day  is  in 
power  by  the  aid  of  this  vote. 

The  one  political  party  can  truthfully  say  to  the 
great  majority  of  the  naturalized  voters:  "I  did  what  I 
could  to  give  you  the  franchise, and  you  have  constantly 
used  that  franchise  to  defeat  me;  "  while  the  other 
political  party  might  truthfully  say  to  the  same  people: 
"From  my  ranks  has  come  all  the  opposition  to  you, 
and  it  is  from  my  ranks  that  to-day  comes  the  demand 
for  restrictive  naturalization  laws;  and  in  return  for  this 
treatment  you  have  stood  faithfully  by  me,  have  kept 
me  in  power,  and  have  given  office  and  honors  to  some 
of  the  very  men  who  opposed  and  slandered  you."  It  is 
incomprehensible  why  opposition  to  making  a  voter  of 
the  immigrant  should  come  from  members  of  the  Repub- 
lican party. 

If  we  look  at  the  question  in  still  another  light,  it  will 
be  found  that  in  those  States  which  have  the  largest 
naturalized  vote,  and  in  which  this  has  been  a  potent 
factor,  there  are  more  churches,  more  libraries,  more 
schools,  better  schools,  and  more  general  intelligence 
than  are  to  be  found  in  those  States  where  the  people 
are  not  only  American-born,  but  are  the  children  of 
American-born  parents.     As  a  rule,  the  poor  among  the 


THE  IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  1 13 

immigrants  are  more  frugal,  are  more  industrious,  and 
are  more  used  to  continuous  hard  worlc  thian  are  tlie 
poor  among  native  Americans,  and  consequently  they 
generally  succeed  in  making  a  living,  while  the  latter 
frequently  fail. 

It  has  been  charged  against  the  naturalized  citizen 
that  he  has  at  different  times,  engaged  in  riots  and  dis- 
turbed social  order;  but  in  most  of  these  cases  it  will  be 
found  that  as  many  American-born  as  foreign-born 
have  participated,  the  fact  being  that  nationality  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  but  that  the  disturbance 
grew  out  of  industrial  or  political  excitement.  But  even 
if  this  were  not  so,  it  does  not  lie  in  the  mouth  of  an 
American  to  make  this  charge,  for  the  most  disgraceful 
acts  of  riot  and  mob  violence  that  stain  our  annals  were 
committed,  not  by  the  foreign-born  in  their  rags,  but  by 
Americans  dressed  in  broadcloth;  and  that  not  in  a 
Dutch  or  an  Irish  settlement,  but  in  the  streets  of  Bos- 
ton. This  mob,  known  in  history  as  the  broadcloth  mob, 
was  diabolical  in  its  fury,  and  sought  to  tear  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  to  pieces,  not  over  a  question  of  starva- 
tion wages,  not  to  avenge  an  act  of  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion, but  simply  because  he  had  dared  to  proclaim  that 
no  man  can  have  a  right  of  property  in  another  human 
being.  If  there  have  been  mobs  and  riots  among'  the 
foreign-born  in  our  country,  they  were  nothing  but  im- 
potent protests,  by  ignorant  though  honest  people, 
against  that  rapacious  greed  which  took  the  bread  they 
toiled  for  away  from  their  children's  mouths,  while  the 
broadcloth  American  Boston  mob  shrieked  for  the  life  of 
the  man  who  dared  to  advocate  human  freedom. 


114  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

I  have  been  speaking,  be  it  noted,  of  the  immigrant 
who  came  of  his  own  accord  to  our  shores,  with  the 
purpose  of  renouncing  forever  his  foreign  allegiance, 
and  swearing  feality  to  the  Republic.  I  do  not  include 
assisted  paupers,  habitual  criminals,  or  laborers,  whether 
yellow  or  white,  brought  over  under  contract  to  sup- 
plant and  drive  out  American  workmen,  both  native- 
born  and  naturalized.  Against  these  classes  our  gates 
should  be  closed. 

Coming  now  to  the  question,  Sliall  naturalization  be 
made  more  difficult?  I  ask:  Why  should  it  be?  Does 
the  history  of  the  past  furnish  any  reason  for  such 
legislation?  If  yea,  what  is  it?  If  nay,  then  why  begin 
now?  If  these  people  are  to  live  here,  they  should  be  a 
part  of  us,  and  should  be  made  to  feel  that  they  have 
an  interest  in  public  affairs.  To  have  a  large  foreign 
population  among  us  and  to  deprive  it  of  the  right  of 
citizenship,  with  all  its  privileges,  would  be  to  create 
jealousies,  discontent,  and,  in  short,  the  conditions 
which,  in  time,  must  produce  disturbances,  and  in  a 
critical  juncture  might  endanger  our  political  existence. 
We  have  seen  that  but  for  the  vote  and  the  influence  of 
the  naturalized  citizen,  Lincoln  could  not  have  been 
elected,  and  that  the  destiny  of  our  country  must  have 
been  different. 

But  suppose  this  were  not  so;  if  the  laws  had  pro- 
hibited a  foreigner  who  had  made  his  home  among  us, 
from  becoming  i  citizen,  and  if  the  millions  of  foreigners 
in  this  country  that  had  accumulated  property  and 
acquired  local  influence,  had  found  themselves  com- 
pelled to  obey  the  laws  and  to  pay  taxes  to  support  our 


THE   IMMIGRAMT'S  ANSWER.  I15 

institutions,  while  they  had  no  voice  in  making  those 
laws,  in  levying  the  taxes,  or  in  managing  those  institu- 
tions, would  they  not  have  been  discontented  and  secretly 
hostile  to  the  government  which  thus  treated  them;  and 
is  it  at  all  probable  that  when  that  government  was 
attacked,  either  they  or  their  sons  would  have  rushed 
to  its  defense  ? 

The  idea  of  limiting  the  franchise  is  not  new.  Wher- 
ever and  whenever  there  have  been  men  who  thanked 
God  that  they  were  not  like  their  fellows,  it  has  been 
advocated,  and  wherever  it  has  been  tried,  it  has  been 
a  failure.  It  is  simply  the  dying  echo  of  aristocracy, 
and  is  inimical  to  the  spirit  of  our  institutions.  Van 
Buren  earned  the  gratitude  of  all  true  Republicans  by 
striking  it  out  of  the  constitution  of  New  York.  There 
are  yet  a  few  States  in  which  a  vestige  of  it  remains;  but 
it  will  be  found  that  these  States  march  not  in  the  van, 
but  with  the  lumber  wagons  of  civilization. 

It  is  frequently  said  that  the  people  w^ho  come  here 
are,  as  a  rule,  ignorant,  and  know  nothing  about  our 
institutions,  and,  therefore,  should  not  be  permitted  to 
vote  after  a  residence  of  only  five  years;  that  they  can 
not  act  intelligently,  and  will  simply  be  tools  for  crafty 
politicians  to  use  at  the  expense  of  good  government. 
Now,  if  the  premises  were  true,  the  conclusions  might 
seem  plausible;  and  were  it  a  matter  of  speculation 
only,  they  would,  perhaps,  be  accepted.  But  the  pre- 
mises are  false.  Besides,  this  is  no  longer  a  matter  of 
argument.  We  have  had  a  century's  experience,  and 
this  must  decide  the  question.  If  the  vote  of  these 
people,  has,  in  the  main,  been  marked  by  ignorance  and 


Il6  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

been  cast  against  beneficial  measures  and  good  govern- 
ment, then  the  charge  must  be  accepted  as  true;  on  the 
other  hand,  if  their  vote  has,  in  the  main,  been  on  tlie 
side  of  right,  and  justice  and  good  government,  then  the 
charge  must  be  treated  as  being  not  only  groundless,  but 
a  slander.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  great  majority 
of  these  votes  has  steadfastly  been  cast  for  the  men 
and  the  measures  which,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
have  shaped  the  destiny  of  this  nation;  surely,  no  voice 
from  the  Republican  party  will  declare  that  they  were 
wrong.  This  being  so,  no  Republican  should  be  per- 
mitted to  make  the  charge  of  ignorance  against  a  class 
of  voters  who  helped  to  support  these  men  and  these 
measures,  and  without  whose  support  the  success  of  the 
latter  would  have  been  impossible. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  so-called  scholar  is  not  the  most  intelligent,  the 
most  reliable,  or  the  safest  guide  in  public  affairs.  The 
great  Selden  was  not  joking  when  he  affirmed  that  "  No 
man  is  wiser  for  his  learning,  and  no  fool  is  a  perfect 
fool  until  he  learns  Latin;"  and  Wendell  Phillips  was  in 
dead  earnest  when  he  said: 

"Book  learning  does  not  make  five  per  cent,  of  that  mass  of 
common  sense  that  runs  the  world,  transacts  its  business,  secures 
its  progress,  trebles  its  power  over  nature,  works  out  in  the  long 
run  a  rough  average  justice,  wears  away  the  world's  restraints,  and 
lifts  off  its  burdens.  Two-thirds  of  the  inventions  that  enable 
France  to  double  the  world's  sunshine,  and  make  old  and  New 
England  the  workshops  of  the  world,  did  not  come  from  colleges  or 
from  minds  trained  in  the  schools  of  science,  but  struggled  up  from 
the  irrepressible  instinct  of  untrained  natural  power.  Her  work- 
shops, not  her  colleges,  made  England  for  a  while  the  mistress  of 


THE   IMMIGRANT'S  ANSWER.  1 17 

the  world,  and  the  hardest  job  her  workmen  had  was  to  make 
Oxford  willing  he  should  work  his  wonders.  .  .  .  Liberty  and 
civilization  are  only  fragments  of  rights  wrung  from  the  strong 
hands  of  wealth  and  book  learning;  almost  all  the  great  truths 
relating  lo  society  were  not  the  result  of  scholarly  meditation,  but 
have  been  first  heard  in  the  solemn  protests  of  martyred  patriotism 
and  the  loud  cries  of  crushed  and  starving  labor.  When  common 
sense  and  the  common  people  had  stereotyped  a  principle  into  a 
statute,  then  book  men  came  to  explain  how  it  was  discovered."* 

I  will  add  only  that  years  ago,  when  the  book  men 
both  North  and  South  were  learnedly  demonstrating 
that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution,  these  common  peo- 
ple from  foreign  shores  simply  said,  "  It  is  wrong  for 
one  man  to  get  another  man's  labor  for  nothing,"  and 
then  took  sides,  not  with  the  powerful  and  wealthy,  but 
with  the  party  that  was  then  the  object  of  ridicule, 
because  it  dared  say  that  slavery  was  wrong.  The  his- 
tory of  this  country  demonstrates  that  the  common  peo- 
ple are  swayed  by  a  patriotic  instinct  or  impulse  in  favor 
of  the  right — something  which  can  not  V^e  said  of  the 
wealthy  or  of  the  book  men. 

I  know  that  occasionally  the  local  government  of  a 
large  city  is  cited  to  prove  the  ignorance  of  the  natural- 
ized voter;  but  only  a  superficial  observer  will  make 
this  assertion.  This  question  has  been  examined  by 
some  of  the  ablest  men  of  America  and  of  Europe,  and 
they  all  agree  that  the  cause  of  bad  government  at  times 
in  cities  is  partisanship  and  the  saloon.  And  the  saloon 
owes  its  power  to  the  fact  that  it  is  courted  by  the  local 
leaders  of  both  political  parties;  each  political  party  is 
ready  and  eager  to  make  any  combination  which  will 
enable  it  to  defeat  its  opponent. 


♦Wendell  Phillips  on  "The  Scholar  in  the  Republic. 


Il8  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

When  the  rich  and  the  educated  divide  themselves 
up  almost  equally  between  the  two  great  parties,  and 
one-half  vote  the  Democratic  ticket  and  the  other  half 
vote  the  Republican  ticket ;  if  then  the  naturalized 
voters,  or,  if  you  please,  the  common  people,  come  along, 
and  part  vote  the  Republican  ticket,  the  remainder  the 
Democratic  ticket,  it  is  both  nonsensical  and  dishonest 
to  say  that  the  result,  no  matter  what  it  is,  is  due  to  the 
ignorance  of  the  voters.  Such  a  charge  could  be  truth- 
fully made  only  if  substantially  all  the  well-informed 
and  the  property-holding  classes  were  to  range  them- 
selves on  one  side,  and  the  ignorant  people  on  the  other, 
and  the  latter  were  to  carry  the  day  and  run  things 
badly.  But  so  long  as  the  rich  and  the  educated  parti- 
san in  the  Republican  party  will  resort  to  any  means  to 
carry  an  election,  and  will  stand  in  line  with  all  classes 
of  voters  on  that  side,  while  the  Democratic  partisan 
does  the  same  thing  on  the  other  side,  the  result  must 
be  attributed  to  a  party  and  not  to  a  class.  There  never 
was  a  dishonest  government  in  any  city  in  this  country 
that  did  not  come  into  power  by  the  assistance  of  a 
large  class  of  voters  who  not  only  were  intelligent,  but 
who  boasted  of  American  ancestry.  And  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  there  never  will  be  one;  for  partisan  feeling 
seems  to  blind  men  who  are  otherwise  intelligent,  fair 
and  honest,  so  that  four  out  of  five  of  the  prominent 
and  intelligent  men  in  each  political  party  will  rather 
see  their  party  win  with  men  who  are  dishonest  and 
unfit  than  see  the  opposite  party  win  with  honest  and 
competent  men.  And,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  man 
who  comes  to  the  polls  in  his  carriage  is,  as  a  rule,  more 


THE   IMMFGRAXT'S,   ANSWER.  119 

narrow  and  more  bigoted   than   the  poor  man  who  has 
to  lose  half  a  daj^'s  wages  in  order  to  vote. 

There  is  an  objection  to  further  immigration  that  at 
first  blush  seems  plausible,  namely,  that  it  increases  the 
competition  among  the  unskilled  laborers,  who  already 
find  it  impossible  to  maintain  their  families  in  a  manner 
becoming  even  the  humblest  American  citizen.  Ocean 
travel  has  become  cheap,  safe  and  speedy,  and  many 
European  countries  are  over-populated.  These  people 
are  aware  that  in  from  two  to  three  weeks  they  can  go 
from  the  place  of  their  birth  to  almost  any  part  of  the 
United  States.  They  have  heard  of  this  country  and 
have  an  exaggerated  idea  of  its  advantages;  and  the 
question  naturally  suggests  itself:  If  these  people  are 
permitted  to  come,  will  not  that  reduce  the  unskilled 
laborer  to  the  condition  of  the  European  laborer;  and, 
to  avoid  this,  would  it  not  be  better  to  prevent  any  more 
people  from  landing  upon  our  shores  ?  To  a  man  who 
sympathizes  with  the  American  unskilled  laborer, 
whether  native-born  or  naturalized,  in  his  hopeless  con- 
dition, this  argument,  I  repeat,  at  first  seems  plausible; 
but  aside  from  the  impossibility  of  enforcing  such  an 
exclusive  policy  along  our  sea-costs  and  4,000  miles  of 
border  crossed  everywhere  by  railroads,  there  are  insur- 
mountable objections  to  it.  First,  it  is  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  and  to  the  law  of  human  development 
and  the  highest  civilization,  which  require  the  freest 
intercourse  possible,  not  only  between  men,  but  between 
nations;  and  no  people  ever  yet  profited,  in  the  long 
run,  by  pursuing  a  policy  at  variance  with  this  law. 
Secondly,  it  could  be  but  a  temporary  expedient  of  such 


120  LH'E    QUESTIONS. 

doubtful  character  tluit  any  great  nation  must  hesitate 
to  adopt  it.  Thirdly,  it  would  be  so  decidedly  narrow 
and  provincial  that,  aside  from  its  effect  upon  ourselves, 
we  can  not  take  such  a  position  in  the  face  of  the  vi^orld. 
The  truth  is  that  the  labor  question  is  becoming  more 
urgent,  and  the  condition  of  the  laborer  is  improving 
as  fast  in  Europe  as  in  this  country;  and  the  laborer's 
only  hope  for  the  future  lies  in  united  action,  not 
alone  in  one  country,  but  throughout  the  civilized 
world.  This  united  action  will  be  brought  about  much 
m.ore  ciuickly  by  unity  of  interest,  free  intercourse  and 
friendly  co-operation,  than  would  be  possible  if  we  were 
to  isolate  ourselves.  In  fact,  it  is  only  by  this  inter- 
course that  the  laboring  masses  can  be  so  educated  as 
to  enable  them  to  stand  together,  and  by  united  action 
secure  justice  for  themselves  and  their  children;  while 
isolation  would  prevent  the  spread  of  intelligence,  make 
united  action  impossible,  and  thus  put  any  great 
achievement  out  of  the  question. 

Besides,  the  American  laborer  does  not  suffer  very 
much  from  competition  with  the  immigrant  who  comes 
of  his  own  volition.  The  latter,  coming  here  to  improve 
his  condition  and  that  of  his  family,  soon  joins  his 
American  brother,  and  asks  wages  which  will  at  least 
enable  him  to  do  this.  But  the  condition  of  the  laborer 
has  been  made  deplorable  by  the  importation  of  ship- 
loads of  inen  under  contract.  These  do  not  come  with 
the  motives  or  with  the  ambition  of  the  class  we  have 
been  considering;  they  have  no  thought  of  becoming 
citizens,  but  are  practically  slaves,  who  will  work  for 
wao-es  upon  which  the  American  laborer  can  not  exist 


THE  IMMIGRAMT'S  ANSWER.  121 

Agents  for  large  corporations  are  constantly  importing 
them.  Steamship  companies,  to  get  the  passage  money- 
paid  by  American  employers,  bring  them  over  by  the 
thousands,  so  that  many  great  centers  of  industry  in  the 
East  have  been  filled  with  them,  and  the  American 
laborer  is  being  crowded  out.  Both  the  native-born 
and  the  naturalized  laborer  have  been  almost  driven  out 
of  the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  by  these  importations. 
True,  there  is  a  law  against  such  contracts,  but  it  is  a 
dead  letter;  so  that  we  have  in  this  country  the  strange 
spectacle  of  the  government  keeping  up  the  price  of  a 
great  many  articles  by  shutting  out  foreign  competition, 
and  at  the  same  time  permitting  the  manufacturers  of 
these  articles  to  import  the  pauper  laborers  of  Europe 
to  produce  them. 

But  this  is  not  natural  immigration;  and  whether  the 
people  thus  brought  be  Chinese,  Hungarian,  Polish,  or 
British  paupers,  they  should  be  excluded;  but  natural 
immigration  should  not  be  interfered  with.  Free  circu- 
lation of  the  blood  is  necessary  to  a  healthy  growth, 
whether  of  an  individual  or  of  a  nation,  and  any  restric- 
tion of  the  natural  processes  arrests  development  and 
enfeebles  both  body  and  mind.  Thousands  of  years 
ago  the  cry,  "  China  for  the  Chinese,"  prevailed  and 
became  a  law  in  one  of  the  richest  quarters  of  the  globe, 
among  a  people  that  had  already  a  high  civilization. 
From  that  time  their  faces  have  been  turned  backward, 
and  they  have  simply  been  worshiping  the  shades  of 
their  father;  and  yet  there  are  in  this  age  and  in  this 
country  men  who  would  have  us  practice  Chinese  states- 
manship. John  P.  Altgeld. 


LIVE    QUESTIONS. 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT. 

{An  address  delivered  before  the  Brotherhood  of  United  Labor,   at  the 
Armory  in  Chicago,  February  22,  i8go.) 

Mr.  President  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

On  March  5,  1867,  there  was  enacted  in  Illinois  a 
statute  of  which  Section  i  read,  as  follows:  "On  and 
after  the  first  day  of  May,  1867,  eight  hours  of  labor 
between  the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun  in  all 
mechanical  trades,  arts  and  employments,  and  other 
cases  of  labor  and  service  by  the  day,  except  in  farm 
employments,  shall  constitute  and  be  a  legal  day's  work, 
where  there  is  no  special  contract  or  agreement-  to  the 
contrary."  A  number  of  other  States  about  that  time 
enacted  similar  laws.  In  1868  a  like  act  was  passed  by 
Congress,  which  was  to  apply  to  all  works  carried  on  by 
the  federal  government,  and  soon  thereafter  General 
Grant,  then  President,  gave  the  measure  the  influence 
of  his  great  name  by  directing  that  the  same  wages 
should  be  paid  for  eight  hours'  work  that  had  been  paid 
for  ten.  Since  that  time  there  has  been  more  or  less 
continuous  agitation  upon  this  subject;  we  have  had 
many  widespread  and  serious  industrial  and  social  dis- 
turbances as  well  as  destructive,  if  not  ruinous  strikes 
growing  out  of  an  attempt   to  introduce  the  eight-hour 

system. 

And  now,  after  twenty-two  years  of  legislation,  after 
many  years  of  agitation,  and  long  after  the   movement 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  123 

has  had  the  sanction  of  some  of  the  ablest  and  best  men 
of  the  land,  we  have  met  to  consider  the  feasibility  of 
extending  this  system,  acknowledging  by  our  very  pres- 
ence here  that  the  difficulties  in  the  way  have  thus  far 
refused  to  succumb  to  legislation,  to  agitation  or  to 
the  personal  influence  of  great  men.  And  I  will  say 
here  that  I  come  not  as  a  prophet  or  a  leader;  I  bring 
you  neither  a  new  religion,  a  new  light,  nor  a  new 
remedy;  I  propose  to  talk  to  you  as  I  would  to  a 
brother,  and  to  view  the  situation,  with  the  difficulties  it 
presents,  in  the  light  we  now  have. 

We  will  first  see  what  has  been  done  toward  shorten- 
ing the  hours  of  labor.  About  1820,  there  began  in  Eng- 
land an  agitation  in  favor  of  reducing  the  number  of 
hours,  especially  in  factories,  from  twelve  and  even  four- 
teen to  ten,  and  it  was  not  until  1847  that  this  resulted 
in  a  ten-hour  law.  The  basis  for  this  class  of  legislation, 
or  rather  the  ground  for  State  interference,  is  that  the 
State  is  interested  in  the  physical  well-being  of  its  citi- 
zens and  has  a  right  to  prohibit  whatever  weakens  their 
vitality.  After  the  passage  of  that  law,  reducing  the 
hours  to  ten,  the  agitation  was  continued  until,  in  many 
lines  of  industry,  they  have  been  reduced  to  nine,  and  in 
a  few  cases  to  eight. 

After  the  reduction  in  England,  the  agitation  pro- 
ceeded in  this  country,  and  in  1S53  the  managers  of  the 
manufactories  in  Lowell  and  Lawrence  and  Fall  River 
voluntarily  reduced  the  hours  of  labor,  first  to  eleven 
and  then  to  ten  hours  per  day.  And  in  1874  Massa- 
chusetts passed  a  law  making  ten  hours  the  limit  for 
females  and  males  under  eighteen  years.     And  it  made 


124  LIVE  QUESTIONS. 

this  law  compulsory — treating  it  as  a  police  regulation 
for  the  protection  of  the  health  and  the  lives  of  the 
operatives  named. 

About  thirty  years  ago  the  eight-hour  system  was  intro- 
duced into  Victoria,  or  South  Australia,  and  has  prevailed 
there  ever  since  in  the  trades,  factories  and  mines.  It 
was  introduced  there  not  by  legislation  nor  by  any  vio- 
lent measures,  but  by  mutual  concessions  between  the 
employer  and  employe.  In  1886  the  large  establish- 
ments at  the  Stock  Yards  tried  the  eight-hour  day  for 
five  months;  at  the  end  of  which  time  the  strong  public 
sentiment  in  its  favor  having  somewhat  abated,  the 
employers,  by  a  concert  of  action,  succeeded  in  re-intro- 
ducing the  ten-hour  day,  but  it  is  to  be  said  for  them 
that,  as  the  large  competing  establishments  in  other 
cities  did  not  adopt  the  eight-hour  system,  the  Chicago 
packers  were  placed  at  a  disadvantage,  and  they  are, 
therefore,  not  to  be  greatly  blamed.  The  eight-hour  sys- 
tem has  also  prevailed  for  a  number  of  years  in  most  of  the 
large  cities  of  this  country  in  what  are  called  the  build- 
ing trades  —  among  masons,  carpenters,  painters,  plas- 
terers, etc.  The  arguments  offered,  pro  and  con,  on  this 
question  are  familiar  to  most  of  you.  They  are  not  new, 
excepting  the  results  of  experience  —  nobody  can  to-day 
lay  claim  to  much  originality  in  connection  with  them. 
They  all  were  made  in  England  early  in  this  century, 
when  it  was  proposed  to  reduce  the  working  day  to  ten 
hours,  and  later,  when  the  working  day,  in  many  cases, 
was  successfully  again  reduced  to  nine  hours,  and  they 
all  were  repeated,  with  more  or  less  vehemence,  in  the 
New  England  States  of  this  country  between  1840  and 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  125 

1870  during  the  agitation  for  a  reduction  in  the  hours 
of  labor  from  twelve  and  even  fourteen  to  ten,  which 
resulted  successfully,  and  they  have  again  been  fre- 
quently repeated  in  late  years  in  connection  with  the 
eight-hour  movement.  In  brief,  it  is  urged  in  favor  of 
shorter  hours. 

First.  That,  labor-saving  machinery  has  so  greatly 
increased  production  that  the  same  amount  of  labor  is 
no  longer  required  to  supply  the  world  with  the  neces- 
saries, the  comforts  and  the  luxuries  of  life,  and  that  the 
laborer  should  share  with  the  rest  of  the  world  the  bene- 
fit which  this  machinery  has  conferred  upon  mankind; 
that  while  it  is  true  that  it  has  also  increased  the  wants 
of  men  so  that  all  the  work  performed  by  machinery 
can  not  be  considered  as  clear  gain  in  point  of  saving 
manual  labor;  it  yet  has,  to  a  much  greater  extent 
increased  production,  and  has,  to  a  much  greater  extent, 
supplanted  human  labor;  and  that  as  the  total  quantity 
of  labor  to  be  performed  by  hand  is  reduced,  the  hours 
of  labor  should  be  proportionately  shortened  and  the 
laborer  given  time  for  healthful  recreations  and  mental 
and  social  improvement. 

Second.  That  this  labor-saving  machinery  has  so 
far  supplanted  human  labor  that  there  are  now  more  than 
a  million  of  men  in  this  broad  land  in  enforced  idleness, 
it  being  claimed  by  seemingly  competent  judges  that 
there  are  in  Chicago  alone  from  50,000  to  60,000  men,  to 
say  nothing  of  many  women  who  work  for  a  living,  who 
can  get  nothing  to  do;  that  if  the  hours  of  labor  were 
reduced  from  ten  to  eight,  the  labor  of  all  these  people 
would  again  be  required,  they  could  again  be  employed 


126  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

and  thus  be  saved  from  the  fearful  consequences,  mor- 
ally and  physically,  that  follow  absolute  destitution. 
That  unless  this  is  done,  labor-saving  machinery  will  be 
a  curse. instead  of  a  blessing  to  mankind. 

Third.  That  at  present,  as  a  rule,  the  workmen,  and 
especially  w^omen  and  boys,  are  kept  in  a  state  of  phys- 
ical and  nervous  exhaustion  so  that  great  intellectual, 
social,  or  even  moral  improvement  is  retarded,  and  in 
many  cases  made  impossible;  that  this  exhausted  and 
worn  condition  not  only  stupefies,  but  that  it  creates  a 
demand  in  the  system  for  stimulants  and  therefore 
naturally  produces  drunkenness  with  its  accompanying 
evils. 

Fourth.  That  while  the  foregoing  is  true  of  adults, 
the  effects  are  still  more  marked  upon  their  children 
that  in  time,  under  our  present  system,  the  children  of 
the  laborers  not  only  become  incapable  of  doing  the 
best  kind  of  work,  but  they  make  a  low  grade  of  citi- 
zens, become  inferior  men  and  women  physically,  men- 
tally and  morally,  and  that  society  at  large,  that  is  the 
State,  and  in  the  end  the  employer,  suffers  from  this  con- 
dition; that  at  present,  as  a  rule,  the  boyhood  and  girl- 
hood among  the  laboring  classes  terminates  at  fifteen, 
that  at  thirty-five  to  forty  they  break  down  with  rheu- 
matism and  the  ailments  that  follow  in  the  wake  of 
exhausting  toil  and  exposure,  and  at  fifty  too  many  of 
them  are  in  their  graves.  In  1874  Governor  Washburne, 
of  Massachusetts,  who  had  previously  opposed  the 
movement  for  shorter  hours — declared  in  his  official 
address  that,  "It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  strength  of 
mill    operators    is    becoming  exhausted    and    they    are 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  127 

becoming  prematurely  old  and  losing  the  vitality  requi- 
site to  the  healthy  enjoyment  of  social  opportunity." 

Fifth.  That  when  one  class  of  people  is  confined  to, 
and  is  exhausted  by  manual  labor,  and  another  has  the 
advantages  of  intellectual  training,  the  former  class  will 
soon  be  absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  latter.  A  man 
who  returns  to  his  home  exhausted  is  in  no  condition  to 
engage  in  intellectual  exercise.  The  mind  sympathizes 
with  the  body,  and  when  the  physical  faculties  are  pros- 
>  trated  with  fatigue,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  employ 
his  mind  so  as  to  win  for  himself  a  fair  position  in  the 
social  scale.  He  has  no  opportunity  to  circulate  among 
his  fellow  citizens  and  take  part  in  current  events,  and 
thus  in  time  a  feeling  of  antagonism  and  discontent  is 
engendered — he  becomes  narrow  and  selfish,  and  a  social 
friction  is  created,  which  in  the  end  is  injurious  to  all. 

Sixth.  That  before  the  division  of  labor  and  the 
extensive  introduction  of  machinery,  each  laborer,  as  a 
rule,  made  an  entire  thing,  so  that  his  mind  was  occu- 
pied and  the  work  was  not  so  fatiguing.  Now  all  is 
changed,  he  works  on  a  single  process,  frequently  on  a 
very  minute  object,  the  effect  of  which  on  the  mind  is 
most  unfavorable  when  long  continued;  the  constant 
concentration  of  the  mind  upon  one  thing  in  time  nar- 
rows it  to  that  thing,  the  laborer  becomes  like  the  ma- 
chine, his  nervous  system  is  weakened,  his  mind  dwarfed 
and  his  body  stunted.  That  when  the  laborer  worked 
by  hand  he  could  rest  when  he  was  tired — quit  an  hour 
earlier  if  he  were  not  well — but  now  he  must  work  while 
the  machine  works  and  that  this  constant  and  regular 
draft  on  the  nervous  system  causes  him  to  wear  out  with 


128  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

the  macnine  and  in  many  cases  sooner — for  human  mus- 
cle and  nerve  can  not  compete  with  steel  unless  given 
plent}^  of  time  to  rest  and  recuperate. 

Seventh.  It  is  urged  that  if  the  hours  were  reduced, 
the  laborer  and  his  children  would  be  in  a  better  condi- 
tion physically,  mentally,  socially  and  morally,  and 
therefore  not  only  would  become  better  citizens,  but 
would  do  better  work,  and,  in  the  long  run,  much  more 
work;  that  it  would  add  from  fifteen  to  twenty  years  to 
the  average  life  of  the  laborer.  In  short,  that  it  would 
place  the  whole  laboring  class  upon  a  higher  plane,  and 
thus  benefit  the  State  and  the  employer;  that  long  hours 
mean  comparatively  low  usages,  low  wages  mean  cheap 
men,  and  cheap  men   mean   low    civilization.     On  the 

OTHER  HAND  IT  IS  URGED, 

First.  That  shorter  hours  mean  reduced  produc- 
tion; that  the  world  needs  all  the  production  we  are 
now  capable  of,  and  that  if  there  is  a  reduction  in  the 
product  of  the  world,  there  must  be  consequent  suf- 
fering, and  that  the  poor  will  suffer  most,  and  the  world 
will  retrograde  instead  of  advancing. 

To  this  it  is  replied  that  it  can  not  be  shown  that 
there  will,  in  the  end,  be  less  production.  On  the  con- 
trary, that  under  shorter  hours  the  laborers  will  have 
increased  vigor  and  higher  intelligence,  feel  more  inter- 
est in  their  work  — and  will,  in  the  end,  accomplish  not 
only  as  much  work,  but  a  higher  grade  of  work;  that, 
in  fact,  this  is  no  longer  an  open  question,  it  having 
been  settled  by  experience;  that  when  in  England  the 
reduction  was  made  from  twelve  and  fourteen  hours 
to  ten,  as  soon  as  things  had  adjusted  themselves  to  the 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  129 

new  conditions,  it  was  found  that  there  was  not  only  as 
much  work  done  in  the  ten  hours  as  had  been  in  the 
longer  hours,  but  that  it  was  a  higher  grade  of  work, 
and  that,  when,  subsequently,  a  further  change  was  made 
from  ten  to  nine,  while  there  was  some  falling  off  at 
first,  yet,  owing  to  the  introduction  of  better  machin- 
ery and  the  improved  condition  of  workmen,  the  prod- 
uct soon  increased  to  what  it  had  been,  and  that  when 
in  the  New  England  States,  about  the  middle  of  this 
centur}'',  the  manufacturers  voluntarily  reduced  the 
hours  of  labor  to  ten,  there  was  scarcely  any  falling  off 
in  the  production  after  the  new  system  w^as  in  full  oper- 
ation, while  the  condition  of  the  laborers  and  their  fam- 
ilies greatly  improved  in  every  respect.  When  the 
eight-hour  day  was  tried  at  the  stock  yards,  there  was  a 
slight  falling  off  in  the  production,  but  not  in  propor- 
tion to  the  reduction  in  hours.  One  of  the  large 
employers  who  opposed  the  movement  stated  that  had 
the  hours  been  nine  instead  of  eight  the  men  would 
have  accomplished  as  much  as  they  formerly  did  in  ten. 
But  if  this  were  not  so,  the  objection  would  not  be  valid, 
because  at  present  there  are  multitudes  for  whom  there 
is  no  work,  and  if  as  many  hours  of  actual  labor  are 
required  as  are  now  devoted  to  it,  then,  by  reducing 
the  number  of  hours  which  each  shall  work,  all  could 
be  employed;  and  that,  if  this  were  done,  the  produc- 
tion would  be  greater  than  at  present.  Further,  that 
there  would  then  be  from  fifteen  to  twenty  years  added 
to  the  life  of  the  laborer,  and  that,  consequently,  the 
total  production  would,  in  the  end,  be  very  much  greater 
than  at  present. 


T30  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

Second.  That  if  the  laborer  were  to  accept  eight 
hours'  pay  for  eight  hours'  work  then  he  would  have 
less  money  to  spend  than  he  has  now,  and  consequently 
be  worse  off,  and  that  if  he  were  to  be  paid  ten  hours' 
pay  for  eight  hours'  work  there  would  necessarily  be  a 
great  increase  in  the  cost  of  production,  and  that,  as 
the  laboring  classes  themselves  consume  the  greater 
part  of  what  is  produced,  they  must  suffer  from  the 
increased  cost  of  production,  that  the  things  which  they 
need  will  be  made  dearer,  while  they  will  have  no  more 
money  than  they  have  now,  and  that,  consequently, 
they  would  still  be  sufferers. 

To  this  it  is  answered  that  the  question  of  wages 
must  be  left  to  regulate  itself;  it  being  in  a  measure,  at 
least,  independent;  that  it  is  true  if  they  got  only  eight 
hours'  pay  for  eight  hours'  work  some  of  them  would 
get  less  money  than  they  get  now,  but  all  would  then 
be  employed,  the  laboring  class  would  get  as  much  as 
they  get  now,  and  none  of  them  would  be  driven  to  the 
point  where  they  must  either  beg  or  steal.  But  the 
assumption  that  if  there  were  to  be  ten  hours'  wages 
paid  for  eight  hours'  w^ork,  and  a  consequent  increase 
in  the  cost  of  production,  the  laborers  would  be  worse 
off  than  they  are  now,  is  at  variance  with  all  experience. 
Plausible  as  the  reasoning  may  at  first  blush  seem,  it  is 
not  correct.  I  will  simply  direct  attention  to  the  fact 
that  everywhere,  and  in  all  times,  in  this  country  and  in 
Europe,  when  wages  were  high,  the  working  classes 
prospered,  when  wages  were  low  they  suffered.  In 
fact,  high  prices  and  good  times  have  gone  hand  in 
hand,  while   low  prices    and    hard    times   have   always 


THE  EIGIIT-IIOUR   MOVEMENT.  131 

been  twin  brothers,  and  the  people  who  always  suffer 
most  when  prices  are  low  are  the  laboring  people.  Low 
wages  and  low  prices,  as  a  rule,  mean  black  bread  and 
no  meat  for  the  man  who  toils  with  his  hands,  and,  in 
many  cases,  it  means  the  poor  house,  the  police  station, 
and  the  bridewell,  for  his  children. 

Third.  That  while  the  time  will  come  when  eight 
hours  will  constitute  a  day's  work,  yet  we  are  not  ready 
for  it  now;  that  the  laboring  classes  are  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently advanced,  that  they  haven't  sufficient  strength 
of  character,  that  they  were  yet  too  ignorant,  and  too 
unruly,  and  too  much  inclined  to  dissipate  to  make  the 
change,  and  that  we  must  wait  until  they  have  reached 
a  higher  development. 

Now,  to  this  I  answer  that  once  it  was  urged  in 
England  that  people  should  not  be  given  their  political 
freedom  until  they  had  become  fitted  for  it,  until  there 
was  no  danger  of  their  abusing  it,  and  Lord  Macaulay 
replied  that,  "If  men  are  to  wait  for  freedom  until  they 
have  become  good  and  wise  in  slavery,  they  will  wait 
forever."     That  observation  answers  this  objection. 

Fourth.  That  there  ought  to  be  no  unity  of  action 
among  the  laborers,  for  if  there  was,  the  liberty  of  each 
laborer  to  work  as  many  hours  as  he  pleased  would  be 
taken  away,  and  that  the  dearest  thing  that  the  laborer 
could  cherish  is  his  liberty  to  work  as  long  as  he 
wishes. 

Now,  it  is  a  remarkable  and  a  sad  fact,  that  when  we 
find  a  class  of  people  in  a  condition  where  they  are  abso- 
lutely helpless,  where  they  are  absolutely  in  the  power  of 
a  stronger  class,  where  they  are  the  slaves  of  adverse  cir- 


132  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

cumstances,  and  where  individual  action  can  accomplish 
absolutely  nothing,  that  there  should  always  be  found 
persons,  who  try  to  keep  them  in  that  condition,  and 
who  will  resort  to  any  sophistry  which  may  serve  this 
purpose.  And  I  will  say  that,  as  a  rule,  these  persons 
are  not  the  employers  themselves,  employers  usually  are 
men  of  brains;  generally,  too,  they  have  hearts,  and 
while  they  may  allow  what  they  consider  to  be  their 
interests  to  carry  them  too  far,  still  they  are  rarely 
heard  advancing  such  an  argument.  Arguments  of  this 
character  are  made  by  a  class  of  men  who  can  be  desig- 
nated as  "hangers  on,"  men  who  want  to  bask  in  the 
smiles  of  the  rich  and  of  the  employers;  men  who,  in 
some  capacity,  either  socially  or  financially,  are  depend- 
ent upon  the  patronage  of  the  rich.  This  class  of  men 
will  resort  to  methods  and  measures  to  hinder  reform 
and  to  defend  abuses,  which  would  make  employers 
blush.  B}''  way  of  contrast,  I  wish  here  to  quote  a  few 
words  from  Governor  Washburne,  of  Massachusetts,  in 
his  message  to  the  legislature;  he  said:  "  The  fact  that 
there  is  unrest  and  dissatisfaction  when  man  is  con- 
fined to  unremitting  toil,  is  one  of  the  brightest  and 
most  healthy  omens  of  the  times.  It  is  an  indication 
that  his  better  nature  is  struggling  for  emancipation; 
it  is  a  hopeful  sign  of  finer  and  nobler  manhood  in  the 
future.  Such  efforts  for  improvement  should  never  be 
discouraged,  but  always  encouraged." 

I'ifth.  Again,  it  is  urged  that  shortening  the  hours 
of  labor  simply  means  increased  idleness,  increased 
drunkenness,  increased  vice;  that  the  extra  time  given 
the  men  will  not  be  put  to  a  good  purpose,  and  that, 
therefore,  the  existing  condition  should  continue. 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  I33 

Now  I  will  say,  in  answer  to  this,  that  if  it  were  true 
it  would  apply  alike  to  all  mankind.  Human  nature  is 
pretty  much  the  same,  and  if  it  is  true  that  you  should 
not  give  men  the  opportunity  to  improve  because  it 
might  be  abused,  then  there  is  no  hope  of  improvement. 
Besides,  it  is  a  question  of  justice  and  right;  eternal  jus- 
tice requires  that  every  man  should  do  his  share  of  the 
work  required  to  be  done  to  supply  the  world  with  what 
is  necessary,  and  if  some  are  now  doing  more  than  their 
share,  they  have  a  right  to  a  change,  and  if  the  men  have 
a  right  to  a  reduction  as  a  matter  of  justice,  they  are 
entitled  to  it  even  if  they  should  abuse  their  leisure. 
One  set  of  men  have  no  right  to  set  themselves  up  as 
judges  of  their  fellows,  and  deprive  the  latter  of  rights 
which  they  enjoy  in  common  with  all.  We  all  abuse,  to 
a  greater  or  less  extent,  the  privileges  and  blessings  con- 
ferred upon  us,  yet  this  is  no  reason  why  we  should  be 
deprived  of  them  by  our  fellow-men.  Take  the  jich  and 
the  sons  of  the  rich;  they  enjoy  privileges  and  advan- 
tages which  were  never  enjoyed  before.  All  art,  all  lit- 
erature and  all  science  are  open  to  them,  and  a  field  for 
doing  good  such  as  was  never  before  seen;  yet  nobody 
will  say  that  they  are  making  a  fair  use  of  these  privi- 
leges. Will  it,  therefore,  be  claimed  that  they  should  be 
deprived  of  them?  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  if  a  large 
class  were  suddenly  given  more  leisure  time,  in  the  first 
reaction  after  the  long  strain  there  would  be  some  dissi- 
pation, but  it  would  be  only  the  effect  of  a  sudden  relax- 
ation, and  it  would  not  last  long.  It  may  be  true  that, 
for  a  short  time  after  the  four  million  slaves  in  the  South 
had  been  granted  their  freedom,  they  were,  if  anything. 


134  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

worse  off  than  they  were  while  they  were  slaves,  but  will 
any  intelligent  man  to-day  claim  that,  therefore,  they 
ought  to  have  been  kept  in  slavery?  However,  we  are 
not  left  merely  to  surmise  or  to  speculation.  At  every 
reduction  of  hours  in  England  there  followed  an 
improvement  in  the  physical,  mental,  moral  and  social 
condition  of  the  laborers.  In  Victoria,  or  South  Aus" 
tralia,  the  eight-hour  system  has  been  in  operation  for 
over  thirty  years,  in  all  lines  of  industry,  including 
mining  and  manufacturing,  and  instead  of  producing 
demoralization,  it  is  not  only  prosperous,  but  is  called 
the  happy  home  of  working  men,  and  the  American  con- 
sul reports  that  "  the  moral  and  physical  condition  of 
the  people  is  sound  and  healthy."  In  1871  Mr.  William 
Gray,  in  writing  on  the  effects  of  the  reduction  from 
twelve  to  ten  hours  in  the  New  England  factories,  said: 
"  The  testimony  of  all  impartial  persons,  including  orig- 
inal opponents  of  the  ten-hour  act,  goes  to  show  that  the 
manufacturing  masses  have  proved  themselves  worthy 
of  the  boon  conferred  on  them.  They  have  not  abused 
the  gift.  Their  intelligence  has  increased,  their  habits 
have  improved,  their  social  happiness  has  advanced; 
they  have  gained  all,  and  more  than  all,  they  expected 
from  the  legislation.  The  intelligence,  the  general  tone, 
the  bearing  of  the  operatives  have  kept  pace  with  the 
advancement  of  the  age.  It  would  be  scarce  too  much 
to  say  that  the  humble  factory  worker,  in  securing  just 
legislation,  has  been  the  civilizer  and  moralizer  of  his 
employer."  One  of  the  largest  employers  in  Chicago, 
who  opposed  this  movement  in  1886,  stated  to  me  that 
after  the  system  was  once  started,  he  could  not  notice 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  135 

any  increased  drunkenness  or  disorder  of  any  kind;  that, 
on  the  contrary,  tlie  rnen  seemed  well  behaved,  and 
attended  faithfully  to  business.  It  is  also  a  fact  that 
the  condition  of  the  artisans  in  the  building  trades,  and 
of  their  families,  has  greatly  improved  since  the  adop- 
tion of  the  eight-hour  system  by  them. 

I  quote  from  another  author,  whose  words  should  be 
seriously  pondered:  "There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  more 
to  be  regretted  than  the  fact  that  extraordinary  com- 
'  mercial  prosperity  and  an  unprecedented  accumulation 
of  wealth  have  hitherto  done  so  little  to  shorten  the 
workman's  hours  of  labor.  It  is  unreasonable  to  expect 
that  the  moral  qualities  in  man's  nature  can  be  duly 
developed  if  life  is  passed  in  one  unvarying  round  of 
monotonous  work.  We  are  constantly  being  reminded 
of  the  ennobling  and  elevating  influence  produced  by 
contemplating  the  beauties  of  nature,  by  reflecting  upon 
the  marvels  which  science  unfolds,  and  by  studying  the 
triumphs  of  art  and  literature.  Yet  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  the  toiling  masses  are  reared  in  such  igno- 
rance, and  surrounded  from  early  childhood  to  old  age 
by  so  much  squalor  and  misery  that  life  could  be  to 
them  scarcely  more  dreary  or  depressing  if  there  were 
on  literature,  no  science  and  no  art,  and  if  nature  had 
no  beauties  to  unfold.  The  undue  length  of  time  which 
men  have  been  accustomed  to  work,  represents,  so  far 
as  many  branches  of  industry  are  concerned,  a  thor- 
oughly mistaken  policy.  In  many  instances  it  is  undeni- 
able that  men  would  not  only  get  through  more  work, 
but  would  do  it  more  efficiently  if  they  had  more  oppor- 
tunity for  menial  cultivation  and  for  healthful  recrea- 


136  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

tion.  No  small  part  of  the  intemperance  which  is  laid 
to  the  charge  of  laborers  is  directly  to  be  traced  to 
excessive  toil.  When  strength  becomes  exhausted,  and 
the  body  is  over-fatigued,  there  often  arises  an  almost 
uncontrollable  desire  to  resort  to  stimulants/'  I  call 
your  attention  especially  to  the  last  few  lines  in  which 
he  says  that  over-fatigue  and  physical  exhaustion  create 
an  almost  uncontrollable  desire  for  stimulants,  and  that 
much  of  the  intemperance  laid  to  the  charge  of  laborers 
is  due  to  excessive  toil.  This  is  not  the  language  of  a 
cheap  agitator,  it  is  not  the  language  of  a  sentimentalist, 
but  it  is  the  language  of  Henry  Fawcett,  who  for  many 
years  has  occupied  the  chair  of  political  economy  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  England.  A  man  who  has 
for  many  years  been  a  member  of  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, a  man  who  has  been  a  member  of  the  English 
Cabinet,  having  been  for  some  time  postmaster  general 
of  the  British  Empire,  a  man  who  is  regarded  as  one  of 
the  most  intelligent  and  accurate  writers  on  social  and 
industrial  conditions  now  living. 

EVOLUTION  OF    THE    LABOR  CAUSE. 

Before  considering  the  practical  difficulties  immedi- 
ately in  the  way  of  a  more  general  introduction  of  the 
eight-hour  system,  it  is  important  that  we  should  under- 
stand the  history  and  the  nature  of  the  development  of 
labor.  It  is  important  to  know  whether  the  conditions 
of  labor  can  be  suddenly  and  arbitrarily  made,  or 
whether  they  are  a  matter  of  growth,  a  matter  of  devel- 
opment requiring  time.  If  we  will  but  glance  back  for 
a  moment,  we  very  soon  see  that  the  labor  problem,  like 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  137 

all  Other  problems  and  conditions  of  existence,  is  gov- 
erned by  the  law  of  evolution,  has  grown  up  from  a 
condition  of  wild  disorder  to,  at  least,  comparative 
order. 

Scientists  tell  us  that  in  the  physical  world,  even 
after  the  earth  had  assumed  its  present  form,  it  required 
long  ages  of  change  before  there  was  such  a  thing  pos- 
sible as  a  peaceful  valley  or  a  green  meadow.  In 
religion  it  took  thousands  of -years  of  development, 
from  a  period  of  demons  and  supernatural  monstrosi- 
ties, from  bloody  sacrifices  and  horrible  torture,  to  the 
pure  and  simple  doctrines  of  Christ,  proclaiming  peace 
upon  earth  and  good  will  toward  men. 

In  politics  mankind  struggled  along  through  various 
forms  and  conditions  of  brute  force  to  near  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  before  there  could  be 
proclaimed  to  the  world  that  all  men  were  created  equal, 
and  even  this  had  to  be  done  in  the  woods  of  America 
—  an  out-of-the-wc.y  place,  a  new  continent  outside  of 
the  limits  of  what  was  then  called  civilization. 

In  the  industrial  world  we  first  perceive  the  struggle 
for  liberty  and  for  justice  by  what  are  called  the  cap- 
tains of  industry,  the  employers,  for,  mark  you,  they  are 
only  a  little  ahead  of  the  wage-workers  in  their  struggle 
for  justice. 

In  ancient  times,  particularly  in  the  Roman  and  the 
mediaeval  world,  a  manufacturer  or  a  merchant,  though 
his  ships  might  cover  the  inland  seas,  though  thousands 
of  men  might  be  doing  his  bidding,  yet  he  had  no  voice 
in  the  government,  was  not  considered  fit  for  a  gentle- 
man and  patrician  to  associate  with,  had  no  voice  in  mak- 


138  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

ing  the  laws  that  should  govern  him  nor  in  determining 
what  taxes  he  should  pay;  he  was  plundered  indirectly 
by  means  of  taxation,  and  when  this  did  not  suit  the  pur- 
pose of  dissipated  and  rapacious  ofhcialism,  he  was  plun- 
dered directly.  To  be  born  a  patrician,  to  be  a  member 
of  the  priesthood,  or  a  successful  military  chieftain, 
entitled  a  man  to  rule.  The  man  who  supplied  the 
world  with  necessaries  had  no  socialor  political  standing, 
and  this  continued  to  be  so  throughout  the  middle  ages 
—  continued  to  be  so  in  most  all  Europe  till  toward  the 
end  of  the  last  century,  and  is  to  a  great  extent  still  the 
case  in  Russia  and  in  the  Turkish  provinces  of  Europe. 
It  is  true  that  in  a  few  Italian  cities  the  conditions  were 
different;  a  few  rays  of  the  coming  dawn  having  struck 
them  first,  but,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  world, 
they  were  so  small  as  to  be  unworthy  of  notice.  In  Eng- 
land the  employer  acquired  his  rights  earlier,  and  has 
for  some  time  had  a  voice  in  the  government.  But  even  in 
England  the  much-praised  Magna  Charta  was  not  for  the 
benefit  of  either  employer  or  workman,  but  simply  of 
the  nobility  —  the  idle,  who,  by  reason  of  the  accident  of 
birth,  were  enabled  to  appropriate  the  labor  of  others. 
But,  upon  the  whole,  the  employer  in  his  struggles  for 
justice  is  not  a  century  in  advance  of  the  class  we  to-day 
call  the  wage-workers,  and  they,  the  laborers,  were  in 
ancient  and  later  times  practically  all  slaves.  To  be 
sure,  we  catch  here  and  there  in  ancient  literature  a 
phrase  about  the  laborer  being  worthy  of  his  hire,  but 
when  we  examine  into  the  actual  condition  of  the  toil- 
ing masses,  we  are  forced  to  treat  such  utterances  as 
the  emanations  of  fancy,  for,  not  only  was  the  labor  of 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  139 

the  masses  at  the  absolute  disposal  of  the  master,  but 
practically,  and  in  every-day  experience,  their  lives  were 
also.  True,  there  was  in  most  countries  a  law  providing 
that  the  master  should  not  kill  his  slave,  but  if  the  mas- 
ter did  so  he  generally  went  unwhipped  of  justice.  This 
continued  to  be  the  condition,  with  slight  exceptions, 
throughout  all  Europe  down  to  near  the  beginning  of 
this  century.  For  unnumbered  centuries  they  were 
absolute  slaves,  belonging  to  individuals;  then  they 
'  belonged,  as  it  were,  to  the  soil,  and  were  known  as 
serfs,  and,  in  time,  in  England,  they  may  be  said  to 
have  belonged  to  the  county  or  shire.  In  Russia  the 
serfs  were  not  freed  until  the  middle  of  this  century, 
and  in  the  United  States  of  America  the  slaves  were  not 
freed  until  after  the  middle  of  this  century.  It  is  true 
there  were  in  some  European  cities  organizations  of 
skilled  workmen,  who  enjoyed  not  only  their  freedom, 
but  some  advantages  that  may  be  said  to  have  been 
ahead  of  their  time,  but,  as  compared  with  the  great 
mass  of  the  common  people,  they  were  so  insignificant  in 
number,  and  their  situation  w^as  so  exceptional,  that  we 
need  not  consider  them  further  than  to  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  they  developed  the  technical  skill  of  their 
members,  and  enforced  sobriety  and  honorable  conduct, 
while  by  means  oi  their  meetings  and  discussions,  they 
became,  in  a  measure,  educated,  and  thereby  reached  a 
much  higher  plane  than  was  otherwise  possible,  and 
they  thus  wielded  a  powerful  influence  for  good. 

Thorold  Rogers,  in  his  great  book  on  wages  would 
have  us  believe  that  three  or  four  centuries  ago  the  con- 
dition of  some  workmen  in  England  was  better  than  it 


140  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

is  to-day,  and  no  doubt  he  found  reference  to  isolated 
cases  which  indicated  that  this  might  be  so.  But  we 
should  get  a  very  superficial  knowledge  of  the  condition 
of  the  common  people  of  England  if  we  were  to  take 
this  as  being  in  any  sense  indicative  of  their  status. 

In  1360,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  it  was  pro- 
vided by  law  that  if  a  laborer  refused  to  work  for  the 
wages  fixed  by  law,  or  by  the  justices  of  the  county,  or  if 
he  went  outside  of  the  county  he  was  to  be  brought  back 
by  the  sheriff,  was  to  be  imprisoned  and  was  to  have 
the  letter  "  F  "  branded  with  a  hot   iron  upon  his  fore- 
head in  token  of  his  falsity.     If  he  sought  by  any  man- 
ner to  increase  the  rate  of  wages  he  was  to  be  imprisoned. 
Nay,  at  one   time,  if  he  accepted  more  he  was  to  be 
imprisoned — and  if  an  employer  agreed  to  pay  more  than 
the  fixed  rate  he  was  to  forfeit  three  times  the  amount. 
From  that  time  on,  for  four  centuries,  the  legislation  in 
England  is   of  uniform  kind,  prohibiting  by  imprison- 
ment all  meetings  of  workmen  and  providing  that  the 
justices  should  fix  the  wages  to  be  paid  in  their  county; 
that  if  any  laborer  refused  to  work  for  the  wages  fixed 
by  the  justices,  he  was  to  be  put  in  the  stocks;  if  any 
laborer  was  found   idle  and   did  not  apply  himself  to 
work,  he  was  to  have  the  letter  "V  "  branded  with  a  hot 
iron  upon  his  cheek  and  was  to  be  sold  into  slavery  for 
two  years,  his  children  likewise  to  be  sold,  and  if  either 
he  or  they  ran  away  they  were  to  have   the  letter  "S" 
branded  on  the  cheek  with  a  hot  iron  and  were  to  be 
sold  into  slavery  for  life,  and  were  to  be  fed  on  bread 
and  water,  and  it  was  provided  by  law  that  they  were  to 
be    made  to  work  by  beating,  by    chaining,  etc.,    etc., 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  141 

and  if  they  ran  away  again  they  were  to  suffer  death. 
Children  that  had  worked  at  husbandry  till  they  were 
twelve  years  old,  were  forbidden  ever  to  attempt  to  do 
anything  else — other  children  were  required  to  follow 
the  occupation  of  their  parents  or  be  imprisoned.  It 
is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  condition  of  the  laboring  classes 
that  could  be  much  worse  than  that  of  the  English  dur- 
ing these  centuries. 

In  1562,  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  the  fol- 
lowing statute  was  enacted:  "All  artificers  and  labor- 
ers being  hired  for  wages  by  the  day  or  week,  shall 
betwixt  the  midst  of  the  months  of  March  and  Septem- 
ber be  and  continue  at  their  work  at  or  before  five  of 
the  clock  in  the  morning  and  continue  at  work  and 
not  depart  until  betwixt  seven  and  eight  of  the  clock  at 
night,  except  it  be  in  the  time  of  breakfast,  dinner  or 
drinking;  and  all  such  artificers  and  laborers  between 
the  midst  of  September  and  the  midst  of  March  shall 
be  and  continue  at  their  work  from  the  spring  of  the 
day  in  the  morning  until  the  night  of  the  same  day, 
except  in  the  time  of  breakfast  and  dinner." 

I  will  simply  add  that  under  the  laws  of  England 
during  all  these  centuries  if  an  employer  violated  an 
agreement  with  an  employe  he  could  simply  be  held  in 
damages,  but  if  an  employe  violated  his  agreement  with 
an  employer  he  could  be  fined  and  imprisoned,  and  it 
was  not  until  1875  that  the  law  was  changed  in  this 
regard  so  as  to  hold  the  employe  only  liable  in  damages 
for  a  breach  of  his  contract  the  same  as  an  employer,  and 
Mr.  Disraeli,  who  was  then  prime  minister,  remarked, 
that '"'for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  country 
the  employer  and  employe  sat  under  equal  laws.  " 


142  LTVE   QUESTIONS. 

From  this  rapid  glance  at  the  history  of  the  cause  of 
labor  we  perceive  that  it  is  a  plant  that  grows  and  that 
can  not  be  arbitrarily  made,  and  its  growth  is  dependent 
upon  the  support  of  public  sentiment;  agitation  has 
helped  it  along  by  educating  and  creating  a  public 
sentiment  in  its  favor. 

CAUSES  OF  FAILURE    AXD    SUCCESS. 

Coming  now  to  the  practical  difficulties  in  the  way, 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  main  reason  for  the  failure  of 
the  eight-hour  movement  in  some  cases  is  that  the 
movement  was  not  co-extensive  with  the  employer's 
field  of  competition,  while  on  the  other  hand,  in  those 
cases  in  which  it  was  successful,  the  movement  was  co- 
extensive with  the  employer's  field  of  competition. 
Let  me  illustrate:  Flouses  and  large  buildings  are  not 
sold  on  board  the  cars  at  place  of  manufacture.  Those 
engaged  in  erecting  them  in  one  city  do  not  come 
directly  in  competition  with  those  engaged  in  erecting 
them  in  another  city.  It  is  true  that  the  workmen  will 
go  from  one  city  to  another,  but  they  do  not  do  this  on 
a  scale  sufficiently  large  to  bring  the  artisans  in  the 
building  trades  in  one  city  so  directly  in  competition 
with  those  in  another.  Most  of  the  workmen  have  fam- 
ilies, which  they  can  not  move  without  expense,  and 
which  they  will  not  leave  to  seek  work  unless  obliged 
to,  so  that  in  the  building  trades  it  is  always  a  local 
question,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  the  short-hour  sys- 
tem has  been  introduced  successfully  in  this  line,  while 
it  has  failed  in  others.  In  Victoria  there  were  only  about 
a  million    of  inhabitants,    with    the  ocean  surrounding 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  143 

them,  and  making  speedy  importation  of  laborers 
impossible.  Now  Chicago  has  over  a  million  of  inhab- 
itants, yet  if  Chicago  stood  alone,  and  if  its  manufact- 
urers did  not  have  to  come  in  competition  with  the  rest 
of  the  country,  it  would  be  a  very  easy  matter  to  have 
the  system  adopted  here.  In  England  the  movement  in 
favor  of  the  reduction  of  hours  was,  in  each  instance, 
co-extensive  with  the  field  of  competition  among  em- 
ployers. It  is  true  it  embraced  vast  industries,  but 
,  they  were  in  a  small  territory,  and  all  those  carrying  on 
the  same  business  were  affected  alike,  hence  the  move- 
ment was  successful.  In  New  England  the  movement 
for  shorter  hours  was  again  co-extensive  with  what  then 
constituted  the  manufacturer's  field  of  competition,  all 
of  the  leading  mill-owners  acceded  to  the  movement, 
and  they  were  all  affected  alike,  and  the  movement  was 
successful. 

In  1886,  when  the  eight-hour  system  was  adopted  at 
the  Union  Stock  Yards  at  Chicago,  it  was  not  adopted 
by  the  large  competing  establishments  in  the  East,  that 
is,  the  movement  in  favor  of  shorter  hours  was  not 
co-extensive  with  the  field  in  which  the  packers  had  to 
compete,  and  consequently  it  failed.  Manufactured 
goods  are  generally  sold  on  board  the  cars  at  place  of 
manufacture,  and  owing  to  the  perfect  facilities  for 
transportation,  a  manufacturer  in  one  city  is  brought 
into  direct  competition  with  another  manufacturer  in 
the  same  line  a  thousand  miles  away.  Therefore,  in  my 
judgment,  any  attempt  to  introduce  the  eight-hour  sys- 
tem into  the  manufacturing  world  must  be  general,  and 
as  you  will   readily  see,  this  will  require  universal  and 


144  LIVE   QUESTIONS. 

thorough  organization  on  tlic  part  of  the  laboring 
classes;  without  thorough  organization,  no  movement 
of  that  kind  can  succeed,  and  the  organization  must  not 
only  be  general,  but  it  must  embrace  all  lines  of  labor; 
it  must  be  general  in  order  that  the  movement  may  be 
general;  it  must  embrace  all  lines  in  order:  First,  so 
that  they  can  support  each  other,  second,  that  there 
may  be  concert  of  action;  third,  that  the  million  or 
more  of  men  out  of  employment,  and  who  are  hungry, 
will  not  at  once  rush  in  and  maintain  the  old  system; 
and  what  is  still  more  important,  that  the  movement 
may  be  controlled  by  reason  and  moderation  and  kept 
free  from  violence,  I  do  not  believe  that  violence  can 
accomplish  any  substantial  results.  On  the  contrary,  it 
has  repeatedly  injured  if  not  defeated  the  movement. 
I  sincerely  hope  that  the  day  of  strikes  is  over,  and  that 
all  differences  in  the  future  may  be  amicably  adjusted 
on  the  basis  of  reason,  justice  and  common  sense,  and  I 
thoroughly  believe  that  organization  is  one  of  the 
greatest  educational  agencies,  and  that  the  laborer  is 
chiefly  indebted  to  it  for  the  improvement  in  his  con- 
dition. 

Organization  by  means  of  agitation  helped  to  create 
the  public  sentiment  that  was  necessary  to  effect  reform, 
and  it  educated  the  laborer,  by  teaching  him  discussion, 
investigation,  consideration,  moderation  and  conserva- 
tism. The  oldest  labor  organizations  in  the  country 
are  the  most  conservative.  They  have  all  taken  high 
ground  on  the  liquor  question,  they  refuse  to  permit  a 
saloon-keeper  to  belong  to  their  order,  and  in  times  of 
violence  they  have,  as  a  rule,  been  found  on  the  side  of 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT.  145 

law  and  order,  violence  has  in  nearly  all  cases  come 
from  the  rabble  and  those  outside  of  labor  organizations. 
It  is  clear  that  if  the  movement  is  not  general,  that 
then,  in  order  to  maintain  it  in  certain  localities  it  will 
be  necessary  to  make  some  concession  in  wages,  and  it 
is  possible  that  if  the  movement  should  be  general,  that 
in  order  to  prevent  too  great  a  shock  to  business  and  a 
loss  to  the  employer,  that  there  might  have  to  be  tem- 
porary concessions,  for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
'  many  manufacturers  are  under  contracts  to  deliver  their 
products  for  some  time  in  the  future,  at  fixed  prices  and 
as  they  are  nearly  all  doing  business  on  a  very  small 
margin,  even  a  slight  increase  in  the  cost  of  manufacture 
would  entail  a  loss  upon  them.  Changes  adopted  by 
mutual  concession  usually  produce  the  best  results. 
Questions  of  this  character  can  rarely  be  settled  by 
those  who  seek  to  get  the  highest  possible  wages  for  the 
least  possible  work  on  the  one  hand,  or  those  who  seek 
to  get  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  work  for  the  least 
possible  wages  on  the  other  hand.  No  system  can  be 
permanently  established  unless  in  the  end  it  shall  prove 
to  be  beneficial  to  the  employer,  hence  it  is  important 
to  consider,  from  time  to  time,  what  the  employer  can 
and  can  not  do. 

It  frequently  happens  that  a  number  of  employes, 
who  consider  themselves  underpaid,  see  their  employer's 
carriage  drive  up  to  the  office,  and  they  look  at  it  and 
then  at  the  large  establishment,  and  conclude  that  he 
could  treble  their  wages  if  he  only  wanted  to,  when 
the  fact  is  that  even  the  wealthiest  men  engaged  in  busi- 
ness are  usually  so  spread  out,  that  is,  carrying  on  such 


146  LIVE    QUESTIONS. 

gigantic  enterprises  and  doing  business  on' so  narrow 
a  margin,  that  they  are  in  a  constant  strain,  and  there 
are  many  who,  with  a  capital  of  only  a  thousand  dollars, 
expect  to  do  a  business  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars^ 
and  they  are  generally  in  such  a  situation  that  a  slight 
disturbance  seriously  affects  them.  In  railroading  and 
in  some  other  lines  of  industry  the  eight-hour  system 
could  not  be  adopted,  but  the  day's  work  in  these  lines 
could  be  fixed  with  reference  to  the  new  standard,  just 
as  it  is  at  present  fixed  with  reference  to  the  ten- 
hour  standard.  Now,  in  conclusion,  I  believe  that  by 
intelligent,  united  and  well-directed  action  on  the  part 
of  the  laborers  of  this  country,  not  only  the  eight-hour 
system,  but  any  other,  desirable  reform  can  be  success- 
fully established,  and  it  can  not  be  in  any  other  way. 

Let  me  say  that  the  nineteenth  century  is  the  only 
century  that  has  lent  a  smile  or  a  helping  hand  to  the 
laborer.  All  the  prior  centuries  struck  him  with  their 
lash,  beat  him  with  their  clubs,  burned  him  with  their 
hot  irons,  and  let  him  rot  in  their  jails.  The  means  of 
advancement  in  this  century  has  been  the  spread  of 
intelligence,  and,  aside  from  the  newspaper  press,  the 
two  great  agencies  for  the  spread  of  intelligence  among 
the  laboring  classes  have  been  the  common  schools  for 
the  education  of  the  children  of  the  laborer,  and  organ- 
ization for  the  education  of  the  fathers  of  these  children. 
Organization  taught  the  laborer  discussion,  investiga- 
tion, consideration,  moderation,  and  it  taught  some 
employers  that  justice  is  the  best  policy. 


Our  Penal  Machinery 


AND 


ITS  VICTIMS. 


BY 

JOHN    P.    ALTGELD. 


THIRD    EDITION. 


PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION. 

In  writing  this  work  it  has  been  my  sole  object 
briefly  to  call  attention  to  the  character  of  our  penal 
machinery,  and  thereby,  if  possible,  to  lead  others  to 
examine  it;  for  I  am  confident  that  when  this  machinery 
is  once  generally  understood,  improvements  will  be 
made  in  it  which  will  benefit  society,  and  will  greatly 
lessen  the  sum  of  human  misery.  J.  P.  A. 

Chicago,  August,  1884. 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION. 

The  very  flattering  reception  given  the  first  edition 
has  led  me  to  believe  that  some  good  might  be  done  by 
giving  this  work  a  wider  circulation.  I  have  therefore 
concluded  to  bring  out  a  new  edition.  J.  P.  A. 

Chicago,  April,  1886. 


PREFACE  TO  THIS  THE  THIRD  EDITION. 

As  the  second  edition  of  five  thousand  copies  is 
exhausted,  and  as  there  is  still  a  call  for  the  book,  I  have 
decided  to  republish  it  in  this  volume.  J.  P.  A. 

Chicago,  April,  1890. 


CONTENTS. 

Part  First. 

CHAPTER   I. 

Arrests — Number  in  Jails  —  Number  in  Penitentiaries — De- 
pendants Affected 153 

CHAPTER   n. 

Number  of  ATen  Employed — Cost — Results 159 

CHAPTER   HI. 

Crime-Producing  Conditions  —  Those  Arrested  —  Occupations 
of  Males  —  Of  Females — Age — Parentage  —  Home  In- 
fluences—  School  Privileges — Habits,  Etc 163 

CHAPTER   IV. 

Repeaters 1 70 

CHAPTER   V. 

Lock-Ups 172 

CHAPTER   VI. 

County  Jails 175 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Effects  of  Imprisonment — Arrests  a  Matter  of  Pride  —  Prison 

Principles  —  All  Treated  Alike 178 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

Treatment  in  Higher  Prisons  —  Cruelty  Never  Effected  a  Con- 
version —  The  Wonder  is  that  any  Survive 192 

CHAPTER   IX. 

Punishment   Must  be.  First,  Necessary;  Second,  Calculated    to 

Produce  Desired  Result  —  E.xamples , 197 


iv  CO.V  TEXTS. 

CHAPTER   X. 

Imprisoning  Women 201 

CHAPTER   XI. 

Indiscriminate  Fining  Leads  to  no  Good  Results . .   206 

CHAPTER   Xn. 

Formality  —  Inequality  of  Sentences 208 

CHAPTER   Xni. 

Remedy 215 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Indeterminate  Sentences 229 

CHAPTER   XV. 

Grand  Juries ...   247 

Part  Second. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Prison  Labor  —  Work  Done^ — Earnings  and  Cost  —  Loss  to 
Society — Innocent  Suffer  with  Guilty — Reason  of  Low 
Average  —  No  Interest  Makes  Poor  Workman — Leaves  Him 
Helpless  —  Industries  Limited 249 

CHAPTER   II. 

Remedy 269 

CHAPTER   III. 

The  Objection  that  Criminals  will  not  Work  —  Make  Time  of 
Discharge  Depend  in  Part  on  Surplus  Earnings  —  Aids  in 
Preserving  Discipline — Too  much  Prison  Labor  —  Work- 
ing Outside  Prison  —  Waste  of  Sentiment  —  Labor  as  Part 
of  Punishment —  Results 274 

Appendix. 


Unnecessary  Imprisonment 2qi 

What  Shall  We  do  With  Our  Criminals  ? 308 


OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY 

AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


Part  First. 


CHAPTER   I. 

Arrests  —  Number  in  Jails  —  Number  in  Peniten- 
tiaries—  Dependents  Affected, 

According  to  the  report  of  the  superintendent  of 
police  of  the  city  of  Chicago  for  the  year  1882,  there 
were  32,800  arrests  made  by  the  police  of  this  city  during 
that  year,  a  number  equal  to  about  five  per  cent,  of  the 
population.'  This  does  not  include  the  arrests  made  by 
constables  and  other  State  officers,  nor  those  made  by 
the  local  police  in  the  adjoining  suburbs  of  Chicago; 
neither  does  it  include  the  arrests  made  by  the  federal 
officers. 

Just  how  many  of  the  above  were  actually  incarcer- 
ated in  prison,  it  is  difficult  to  estimate;  but  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  the  majority  were  actually  locked  up,  even 
though  some  of  them  were  bailed  out  soon  after.  Sup- 
posing that  fifty  percent,  of  the  above,  which,  as  will  be 
seen,  is  nearly  right,  were  what  are  called  "repeaters" 
—  that  is,  persons    who  had  been  arrested   before  —  it 

*  The  number  of  arrests  by  the  police  of  Chicag'o  for  the  year  1884  was  39,433,  of 
whom  30,887  were  males, and  8,547  were  females;  and  the  general  condition  of  these 
as  well  as  the  proportion  of  each  class,  as  it  regards  age,  prior  arrests,  occupation, 
etc.,  etc.,  was  substantially  the  same  as  that  of  those  arrested  in  1882. 

(153) 


154      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

would  still  leave  the  number  of  new  arrests,  that  is,  the 
number  of  persons  arrested  for  the  first  time,  at  16,400. 
Then,  assuming  that  the  population  will  remain  the 
same,  and  multiplying  this  number  by  33,  the  number 
of  years  of  the  average  lifetime,  we  find  the  astounding 
aggregate  of  541,200  persons  arrested  during  each  gen- 
eration by  the  police  of  Chicago  alone. 

The  number  of  arrests  in  proportion  to  the  popula- 
tion is  not  greater  in  Chicago  than  in  the  other  large 
cities  of  America;  in  fact,  it  falls  far  below  that  of  some 
cities.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  above  did  not  actually 
live  in  Chicago,  and  it  is  also  true  that  the  number 
arrested  in  proportion  to  population  in  small  towns,  and 
in  the  country,  is  much  smaller  than  in  large  cities. 
Now,  while  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  the  exact 
number  of  arrests  made  each  year  throughout  the  entire 
country,  still,  if  we  add  the  arrests  made  by  constables, 
sheriffs  and  other  officials,  State  and  federal,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  above  estimate  of  five  per  cent,  will,  when 
applied  to  the  whole  country,  be  not  far  out  of  the  way. 
Assuming,  then,  that  we  have,  in  the  United  States, 
50,000,000  population,  it  follows  that  there  are  in  the 
neighborhood  of  2,500,000  arrests  every  year  (some 
writers  estimate  the  number  much  higher);  and,  assum- 
ing further,  that  forty  per  cent,  of  these  were  repeaters 
(this  is  sufficiently  large  when  the  whole  country  is 
included,  for  outside  of  cities  their  number  is  much 
smaller),  it  will  still  leave  1,500,000  as  the  number  of 
persons  arrested  each  year  for  the  first  time.  That  is, 
one  million  and  a  half  human  beings  are  annually 
broken  into  what  may  be  called  a  criminal  experience. 


ARRESTS— NUMBER  IN  PRISONS. 


^JO 


If  an  average  lifetime  is  thirty-three  years,  and  the 
population  should  not  increase,  there  will  be,  according 
to  the  above,  in  each  generation,  about  49,500,000  differ- 
ent human  beings  in  this  country  arrested  and  subjected 
to  a  criminal  experience. 

NUMBER    IN    JAILS. 

So  much  for  arrests.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  how- 
many  persons  are  actually  incarcerated  in  the  police 
prisons,  variously  called  station-houses,  calabooses,  etc.; 
but  aside  from  these,  there  is  a  jail  in  nearly  every 
county  in  the  United  States,  making  in  all  about  2,140. 
At  the  time  of  taking  the  census  of  1880,  there  were 
actually  confined  in  these  jails  12,815  prisoners.  The 
average  length  of  confinement  in  jails  is  generally  from 
thirty  to  forty  days;  so  that,  if  the  number  of  inmates 
is  to  remain  the  same,  the  above  number  must  be 
renewed  a  little  over  ten  times  every  year.  This  would 
make  the  total  number  of  committals  to  the  county  jails 
in  that  year,  128,150.  Allowing  for  increase  of  popula- 
tion, it  would  make  the  annual  number  now — (1883-4), 
160,150. 

If  from  the  above,  forty  per  cent,  oe  aeducted  for 
repeaters,  we  shall  have  a  result  of  96,090,  representing 
the  number  of  persons  that  are  annually  put  into  jail  for 
the  first  time. 

NUMBER   IN    PENITENTIARIES   OR    STATE    PRISONS. 

In  addition  to  the  above,  there  are  in  the  United 
States  upward  of  fifty  State  prisons  and  work-houses 
generally   called  houses  of   correction,  in  which    those 


IS6      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

actually  convicted  are  confined,  and  in  which  the  pris- 
oners are  required  to  work,  as  the  convict-labor  system 
has  been  introduced  into,  and  now  prevails  in  all  the 
State  prisons  and  houses  of  correction  in  the  United 
States,  except  in  Delaware.  In  the  last  State  prisoners 
do  not  work. 

It  should  be  explained  that  the  so-called  houses  of 
correction,  or  bridewells,  are,  in  fact,  miniature  peniten- 
tiaries; the  chief  difference  being  that  to  the  former  are 
committed  those  that  are  convicted  of  the  minor  offenses 
and  sentenced  for  a  short  term,  as  well  as  those  that  are 
unable  to  pay  a  fine  imposed  by  some  police  magistrate. 
These  houses  are  generally  situated  near  large  cities, 
and  frequently  draw  inmates  from  no  other  source. 

According  to  the  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  of  Illinois,  made  to  the  legislature  of  that 
State,  about  50,000  convicts  were  confined  in  1880  in  the 
various  penitentiaries  and  houses  of  correction  in  the 
United  States  in  which  prison  labor  was  performed. 
The  average  length  of  confinement  in  the  penitentiaries 
varies  greatly  from  time  to  time,  but  is  generally  from 
two  and  one-half  to  nearly  four  years,  while  in  the  houses 
of  correction  it  is  generally  from  thirty  to  forty  days.  As 
we  do  not  know  the  precise  average  length  of  confine- 
ment in  State  prisons,  we  can  not  tell  exactly  how  many 
enter  these  institutions  every  year  for  the  first  time. 

Allowance  must  here  also  be  made  for  repeaters,  who, 
in  some  State  prisons,  make  up  twenty-five  per  cent, 
of  the  inmates.  But,  after  making  all  allowance,  it 
is  apparent  that  the  number  of  men  —  and  a  great 
majority  are  young  men — annually  added  to  the  misera- 


DEPENDENTS  AFFECTED,  157 

ble  throng,  is  very  large;  and  if  we  multiply  this  num- 
ber by  the  number  of  years  constituting  the  average 
lifetime,  we  can  form  some  idea  of  the  number  of  vic- 
tims which  each  generation  contributes  to  this  altar. 

DEPENDENTS  AFFECTED. 

Pursuing  the  subject  a  little  farther,  we  find  we  have 
only  touched  a  small  part  of  it.  I  will  not  here  discuss 
the  moral  effect  of  arrest,  imprisonment,  etc.,  on  the 
prisoner  himself,  but  simply  on  those  standing  in  close 
relationship  to  him,  as  father,  mother,  sister,  brother, 
child,  etc.  The  disgrace,  the  odium,  the  pain,  reach  out 
remorselessly  to  them,  and  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  they 
suffer  on  account  of  his  fate.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there 
are,  on  an  average,  at  least  five  persons  that  stand  in  this 
relation  to  every  man  who  is  wearing  striped  clothing 
and  responding  to  a  number  in  a  State  prison  —  to  every 
one  that  is  breathing  the  corroding  air  of  the  county 
jail,  as  well  as  to  him  who,  for  the  first  time,  feels  the 
ignominy  of  having  rough  hands  laid  on  him  and  of 
being  deprived  of  his  liberty. 

Multiply,  now,  the  foregoing  numbers  by  five,  and 
then  behold  the  multitude  who  are  directly  affected  — 
who  feel  the  shock,  the  quiver  of  every  blow  that  is  struck 
by  our  penal  machinery. 

Consider  for  a  moment  that  for  the  50,000  beings 
confined  in  the  penitentiaries,  there  are  at  least  250,000 
others  that  are  suffering.  Leave  out  the  repeaters,  if 
you  like,  as  being  past  the  pale  of  sympathy;  take  the 
annual  96,090  new  cases  of  imprisonment  in  the  county 
jails,  and  reflect  that  there  are  480,450  others  that  are 


15S       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

feeling  the  blow.  Then  take  the  1,500,000  perspns 
arrested  each  year  for  the  first  time,  and  remember  that 
there  are  annually  7,500,000  different  human  beings,  and 
these  of  the  poorer  and  weaker  classes,  who  are  shoved 
downward  instead  of  being  helped  by  our  penal  ma- 
chinery. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Number  of  Men  Employed  —  Cost  —  Results. 

Again,  look  at  the  number  of  men  employed  by  this 

system.     There  are  the  thousands  of  regular  policemen 

in  our  cities  —  the  thousands  of  special  policemen  —  the 

thousands  of  so-called  detectives,  both  public  and  private. 

Then  there  are  in  the  neighborhood  of  50,000  constables 

in  this  country,  and  about  as  many  magistrates.     Then 

there  are  nearly  2,200  sheriffs,  and  perhaps  10,000  deputy 

sheriffs.     Then"  come   grand    juries  —  for    most  of   the 

States  still  retain  this  system — meeting,  on  an  average, 

three  times  a  year,  and  composed,  usually,  of  eighteen 

men  each;  then  the  petit  juries  for  about  2,200  counties, 

meeting   as  often   as  the   grand   juries,  and,  including 

talesmen,    composed    of    about    the    same    number   of 

men;  then,  lawyers  for  the  State;  next,  judges  for  the 

trial,    and    appellate   courts,    clerks    for    these    courts, 

keepers  for  police  stations,  keepers  for  about  2,200  jails, 

keepers  for  all  the  penitentiaries,  to  say  nothing  about 

witnesses  for  the  State  and  defense.     In  all  these  you 

behold   a  vast  multitude  of  men,  numbering   nearly  a 

million,   all   forming   a    part  of    this    machinery,   many 

giving  it  all  their  time,  some  getting  salaries  and  others 

relying  on  the  fees  they'can  collect  from  those  arrested 

—  actually  getting  their  living,  or  trying  to  get  it,  out 

of  the   shortcomings   and    the    transgressions  of    their 

fellow-men. 

So  much  for  a  glance  at  the  size  of  this  machinery. 
159 


i6o         OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

COST. 

Turning  for  a  moment  from  the  size  to  the  "cost  of 
the  thing,"  we  find  that  the  sums  expended  are  more 
than  any  man  can  count.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate 
the  amount  now  actually  invested  in  prison-buildings 
and  equipments  throughout  the  land.  There  are  nearly 
fifty  large  penitentiaries  supplied  with  work-shops,  ma- 
chinery, etc.  Then  there  are  nearly  2,200  jails,  besides 
numerous  police  prisons.  Perhaps  $400,000,000  would 
be  a  low  estimate  of  the  cost  of  all  these  improvements. 
This  is  all  dead  capital.  Nobody  thinks  of  getting  any 
return  on  it — even  in  those  prisons  that  are  said  to  be 
self-supporting,  nobody  thinks  of  paying  interest  on 
the  investment.  Placed  at  five  per  cent.,  the  interest  on 
this  sum  alone  would  be  $20,000,000  per  annum. 

The  above  sinks  into  insignificance  when  compared 
with  the  yearly  expenses.  While  a  few  of  the  peniten- 
tiaries have,  for  short  intervals,  been  "self-supporting," 
the  most  of  them  must  apply  annually  to  the  legisla- 
ture for  large  appropriations.  Then,  the  expense  of 
keeping  up  the  jails,  the  smaller  prisons  and  the  police 
force,  may  be  called  a  dead  loss. 

In  1880  the  average  cost  in  Illinois  of  every  prisoner 
in  jail,  including  expense  of  arrest,  etc.,  was  about  $27. 
Assuming  this  to  be  a  fair  average,  it  would  make,  on 
the  present  basis  of  population,  a  total  yearly  expense 
of  $4,087,800,  for  jail  prisoners. 

For  the  year  1882,  the  expense  of  the  police  depart- 
ment of  Chicago  was  a  little  over  $800,000,  making  an 
average  of  about  $24  for  each  of  the  32,800  arrests.  As 
the  police  department  of  Chicago   is   run  as  economic- 


MEN  EM  PL  0  YED  —  COS  TS —RESULTS.  1 6 1 

ally  and  the  force  is  as  effective  and  well-managed  as 
any  in  the  land,  this  is  a  low  average,  and  yet  if  this 
sum  were  multiplied  by  the  total  arrests  throughout 
the  land,  it  would  make  $36,000,000  as  the  amount  paid 
annually  by  the  government  simply  for  arrests;  and  to 
this  amount  most  of  the  jail  expenses — the  costs  of  pros- 
ecution and  of  confinement  in  the  larger  prisons — must 
yet  be  added. 

These  sums  are  large;  and  yet  they  represent  only 
a  part  of  the  expense.  They  approximate  only  the 
amounts  paid  directly  in  the  shape  of  taxes;  they  do 
not  include  the  large  sums  paid  as  costs  by  those  con- 
victed, nor  do  they  include  the  large  sums  expended 
in  various  other  ways  in  connection  with  our  criminal 
procedure. 

RESULTS. 

Such  is  the  size  and  the  cost  which  a  mere  glance  at 
our  penal  machinery  reveals.  //  is  immense,  it  is  cosily, 
and  its  victims  are  counted  by  miilions.  Surely  one  would 
suppose  that  in  this  country  crime  were  repressed,  that 
life  and  property  were  protected;  and  as  the  terrors  of 
the  law  are  scattered  so  profusely  in  the  shape  of 
numerous  arrests,  one  would  suppose  that  the  hardened 
criminal  were  perfectly  restrained,  and  the  young  de- 
terred from  the  paths  of  crime. 

But,  strange  to  say,  quite  the  opposite  seems  to  be 
the  case.  The  young  are  not  deterred,  nor  are  the 
vicious  repressed.  Revolting  crimes  are  of  most  fre- 
quent occurrence  in  all  parts  of  the  land,  and  the  feeling 
is  spreading  that  from  some  cause  our  penal  system 
does  not  protect  society.  In  short,  it  does  not  seem  to 
be  a  success. 


l62    OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

It  does  not  deter  t/ie  young  offender,  afid  if  seems  not  to 
reform  nor  to  restrain  the  old  offender. 

This  being  so,  one  is  naturally  led  to  ask  whether 
there  is  not  something  wrong  with  the  system;  whether 
it  is  not  based  on  a  mistaken  principle;  whether  it  is 
not  a  great  mill  which,  in  one  way  or  another,  supplies 
its  own  grist,  a  maelstrom  which  draws  from  the  out- 
side, and  then  keeps  its  victims  moving  in  a  circle  until 
swallowed  in  the  vortex. 

For  it  seems,  first,  to  make  criminals  out  of  maj  y  t/iat  are 
not  naturally  so;  and,  second,  to  render  it  difficult  for  those 
once  convicted  ever  to  he  anything  else  than  criminals;  and, 
third,  to  fail  to  repress  those  that  do  not  want  to  be  anything 
but  criminals. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CRIME-PRODUCING  CONDITIONS. 

Who  are  Those  Arrested — Occupations  of  Males — 
Occupations  of  Females — Age — Parentage  — 
Home  Influences — School  Privileges — Habits,  etc. 
Let  us  first  see  whence  comes  this  multitude  —  from 
what  strata  of  society  is  it  drawn.  Is  it  composed  of  the 
strong,  the  well-raised,  well-trained,  well-housed  and 
well-fed  class,  and  must  it  therefore  be  regarded  as  will- 
fully criminal?  or  is  it  largely  made  up  of  the  poor,  the 
unfortunate,  the  squalid,  and  those  that  are  the  victims 
of  their  environment  ?  We  need  not  go  far  for  an 
answer.  Taking  the  report  of  the  superintendent  of 
the  house  of  correction  (bridewell)  of  Chicago,  we  find 
that  of  7,566  persons  imprisoned  in  that  institution 
during  the  year  1882,  all  but  196  were  incarcerated  for 
non-payment  of  fines.  That  is,  7,376  had  been  fined  for 
some  small  offense,  and,  being  unable  to  pay  the  fine, 
had  been  sent  to  the  house  of  correction  to  work  it 
out.  This  shows  that  nearly  all  those  there  confined 
were  of  the  very  poor  classes. 

occupations  of  males. 

Glancing  at  the  reports  of  their  occupations,  we  find 
that  306  reported  no  occupations,  1,460  claimed  to  be 
common  laborers,  214  sailors,  327  teamsters,  190  hos- 
tlers, 167  railroad  employes,  96  waiters,  99  printers,  64 

163 


164      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

peddlers,  176  painters  and  glaziers,  11 1  shoemakers,  99 
puddlers,  no  cooks,  77  firemen,  109  packers,  64  machin- 
ists, 80  apprentices,  87  barbers,  61  blacksmiths,  150 
carpenters,  149  butchers,  43  chair-makers,  44  cigar- 
makers,  157  clerks,  48  brick-layers,  36  bar-tenders,  65 
bootblacks,  23  boiler-makers,  59  farm-hands,  82  molders. 

OCCUPATIONS    OF    FEMALES. 

Of  the  1,809  females  committed  to  the  same  institu- 
tion during  the  year  mentioned,  359  were  reported 
prostitutes,  871  servants,  121  washwomen,  52  seam- 
stresses, 26  scrubbers,  99  cooks,  24  dress-makers,  114 
laundresses,  etc.,  showing  that  the  women  likewise  were 
of  the  poorer  classes,  almost  one-half  being  servants. 

AGE. 

Looking  at  their  ages,  we  find  they  ran  as  follows: 
eight  years  old,  i ;  nin-e  years  old,  5;  ten  years,  14;  eleven 
years,  25;  twelve  years,  47;  thirteen  years,  68;  fourteen 
years,  103;  fifteen  years,  95;  sixteen  years,  150;  seven- 
teen years,  185;  eighteen  years,  285;  nineteen  years,  231; 
twenty  years,  234;  twenty-one  years,  310;  twenty-two 
to  twenty-five  years,  1,184;  twenty-six  to  thirty  years, 
1,343;  thirty-one  to  thirty-five  years,  960;  thirty-six  to 
forty  years,  978;  forty-one  to  fifty  years,  921;  fifty-one 
to  sixty  years,  358;  sixty-one  to  seventy  years,  74; 
seventy-one  to  eighty  years,  16;  eighty-one  to  ninety 
years,  9.  Showing  that  508  were  under  sixteen  years  of 
age;  1,413  were  under  twenty-one;  2,907  were  under 
twenty-six,  and  4,241  were  under  thirty  years  of  age. 


CRIME-PRODUCING  CONDITIONS.  165 

PERCENTAGE. 

Again,  //  appears  from  the  sai7ie  report  that  of  the  /,jd6 
incarcerated  during  said  year,  3,460,  or  almost  half,  had  fio 
parents  living j  1,103  ^'^^  ^'^^y  "lother  living;  32^  had  only 
father  living — making  3,op4,  or  five-sevenths  of  all,  whose 
home  conditiojis  were  bad,  while  almost  half  of  the  whole  num- 
ber comtniftcd  had  no  hoine  at  all. 

The  same  conditions  are  found  in  the  larger  prisons, 
as  will  be  seen  by  examining  the  following  table  pre- 
pared by  Fred.  L.  Thompson,  chaplain  of  the  Southern 
Illinois  Penitentiary  at  Chester.  It  throws  a  flood  of 
light  on  this  subject. 

TABLE  SHOWING  PRIME    CAUSES    OF    CRIME,    ON    A    BASIS    OF 
FIVE  HUNDRED  MEN. 

Hotne  Influences. 
Lost  father  at  5  years  and  under 65 

"         "  10      "       "      over  5 20 

"         "  15       ''       "      over  10 7 

Lost  mother  at  5  years  and  under 42 

"         "  10      ''        "     over  5 29 

"         "  15      "        "     over  10 28 

Lost  both  parents  at  5  years  and  under 24 

"       "  "  10     "        "     over  5    28 

Never  knew  a  home 38 

Left  home  at  10  years  and  under 49 

"         "  15       "       *'      over  10 167 

18       "       "  "    15 165 

20       "       "  "     18 47 

"         "  21       "       "       upward 34 

Without  home  influence  at  18  years  and  under 419 


1 66       OUR  PENAL  MACHIA i^KY AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

School  Privileges. 

Never  went  to  school 218 

Went  to  school  2  years  and  less 104 

Went  to  school  5  years  and  over  2 99 

"      10      "       "       "       5 79 

•  Illiterate i53 

Read  and  write  very  imperfectly 1 89 

"         "         *'     with  higher  attainments. . 188 

Learned  to  read  and  write  in  prison 32 

Habits. 

Frequented  saloons 406 

Drunken  habits 121 

Drunk  at  time  crime  was  committed 115 

Gambled 246 

Carried  concealed  weapons 208 

Age  at  First  Penitentiary  Crime. 

20  years  and  under 15° 

over  20 140 

"      25 90 

"      30 70 

"      40 24 

"         50 21 

"      60 5 

In  his  report,  accompanying  this  table,  Mr.  Thomp- 
sons says:  "  I  have  read  every  available  thing  on  crime, 
its  cause  and  cure;  on  prisons,  their  discipline,  etc.  I 
have  talked  freely  with  the  convicts  as  to  their  early 
lives,  their  home  influences,  their  early  opportunities 
and  their  habits;  and  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  are  two  prime  causes  of  crime  — the  ivant  of  proper 


25 

"     ov 

30 

40 

50 

60 

70 

CRIME-PRODUCING  CONDITIONS.  167 

hone  influence  in  childhood,  and  the  lack  of  thorough,  well- 
disciplined  education  in  early  life.  Of  the  first,  there  are  at 
least  five  classes:  Those  who  never  knew  a  home;  those 
who  lost  parents,  one  or  both,  while  young;  those  who 
had  vicious  homes;  those  who  ran  away  from  home  in 
the  formative  period  of  life;  and  those  who  were  over- 
indulged in  their  homes.  Of  the  second,  there  are  those 
who  never  went  to  school;  those  who  went  but  very 
little;  and  those  who  played  truant,  or  were  idle  and 
refractory  in  school.  The  lack  of  this  early  influence 
and  training  at  home,  and  of  this  discipline  and  learning 
at  school,  has  left  the  individuals  morally  and  mentally 
weak,  the  easy  subjects  of  bad  habits,  vicious  appetites, 
and  designing  men. 

"■  These  drift  into  the  tide  of  bad  associations,  trashy, 
and  then  vicious,  reading,  to  places  of  carnal  amuse- 
ments, to  saloons,  gaming  houses,  houses  of  ill-fame,  to 
the  society  of  the  vulgar  and  criminal,  to  the  committing 
of  crimes — small  at  first,  but  bolder  at  last — and  then 
into  the  penitentiary.  The  current  of  this  steam  is  as 
traceable,  and  its  sweep  as  powerful  and  merciless,  as 
the  channel  of  the  Mississippi  river.  As  the  latter  un- 
molested, sweeps  its  drift  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  so 
certainly  the  former  sweeps  its  drift  into  the  peniten- 
tiary or  some  other  form  of  penal  service,  unless  the 
strong  arm  of  society  is  in  some  way  put  forth  to  the 
rescue.  That  you  and  others  may  see  and  feel  this  as  I 
do,  I  have  visited  five  hundred  prisoners,  taken  in  suc- 
cession, and  put  to  them  uniform  questions,  the  answers 
to  which  I  have  carefully  noted,  tabulated,  and  present 
with  this   report.     When  you  have  studied  this  table,  I 


1 68      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

am  certain  you  will  be  convinced  of  the  position  I  have 
taken  as  to  the  prime  causes  of  crime.  No  one  has  a 
better  opportunity  to  see  the  discipline  of  the  prison,  and 
study  its  effects  upon  the   convicts,  than  the  chaplain." 

Looking  a  moment  at  Mr.  Thompson's  table,  we  see 
\\idi\.  of  the  §00  convicts  examined,  41  g,  or  upwards  of  four - 
fifths,  were  7vithout  home  influence,  when  at  the  age  of  18 
years,  and  under.  This  shows  where  the  multitude 
comes  from. 

It  also  appears  that  of  the  same  five  hundred,  218  never 
had  attended  school ;  and  that  only  188,  or  less  than  tivo- fifths, 
had  what  is  usually  called  a  good,  fair  education.  It  also  ap- 
pears that  more  than  half  were  under  twenty-six  years 
of  age. 

This  showing  is  not  exceptional  to  that  penitentiary  ; 
on  the  contrary,  these  conditions  are  substantially  the 
same  in  all  the  large  prisons  in  the  country.  I  have 
examined  the  reports  of  nearly  all  the  large  prisons  in 
the  United  States,  and  find  a  remarkable  similarity  in 
them  all,  in  so  far  as  they  treat  of  the  question  here 
under  consideration. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  great  multitudes  annually 
arrested  for  the  first  time  are  of  the  poor,  the  unfortu- 
nate, the  young  and  neglected  ;  of  those  that  are  weak 
and,  to  a  great  extent,  are  the  victims  of  unfavorable 
environments.  In  short,  our  penal  tnachinery  seems  to 
recruit  its  victims  from  amofig  those  that  are  fighting  an 
unequal  fight  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

Thesubject  oi crime-produci?ig condiiionsh3iS received  but 
little  attention  in  the  past,  and  is  only  now  beginning  to 
be  drscussed.     It  has  always  been  assumed,  in  our  treat- 


CRIME-PRODUCING  CONDITIONS.  169 

ment  of  offenders,  that  all  had  the  strength,  regardless 
of  prior  training  and  surroundings,  to  go  out  into  the 
world  and  do  absolutely  right  if  they  wished,  and  that 
if  any  one  did  wrong  it  was  because  he  chose  to  depart 
from  good  and  to  do  evil.  Only  recently  have  we  begun 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  every  man  is  to  a  great  extent 
what  his  heredity  and  his  early  environment  have  made 
him,  and  that  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  applies  here  as 
well  as  in  nature. 

CAN  NOT  SAY  "  NO.  " 

Nor  have  we  thus  far  sufficiently  considered  the  fact 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  human  family  can  not  say 
"^  no  "  at  all  times  when  they  should.  How  common  it 
is  for  people  of  education  and  character  to  do  things 
which  they  know  at  the  time  to  be  injurious.  Yet  an 
influence  which  somehow  they  can  not  resist  impels 
them,  and  they  act,  as  it  were,  under  protest — often 
doing  things  which  at  the  very  time  fill  them  with  dread. 

This  is  true  of  many  that  have  had  excellent  training, 
while  among  the  less  fortunate  there  are  multitudes, 
with  fair  intelligence  and  industry,  who  want  to  do 
right,  but  who  suddenly  find  themselves  within  the 
power  of  an  evil  influence,  exerted  by  pretended  friends? 
which  they  dread — which  drags  them  down,  often  leads 
them,  against  their  will,  into  crime,  and  from  which, 
unaided,  they  can  not  free  themselves.  They  are  mor- 
ally weak,  not  naturally  bad.  They  are  tools,  not  mas- 
ters— mere  instruments,  not  principals,  and,  so  far  as  it 
concerns  moral  responsibility,  might  as  well  be  inan- 
imate and  unconscious.  Yet  we  treat  them  as  if  they 
were  masters. 


17°     OUR  PENAL  MACiriXERY  AXD  ITS  VICTiMS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Repeaters. 

In  the  Milwaukee  House  of  Correction  there  were 
committed,  during  the  year  ending  December  31,  1881, 
1,420  prisoners;  of  these  58.52  per  cent,  were  committed 
for  the  first  time,  while  41.48  per  cent.,  or  less  than  half, 
had  been  imprisoned  before. 

During  the  year  1882,  there  were  committed  in  the 
Chicago  House  of  Correction,  or  Bridewell,  7,566  pris- 
oners; of  these,  3.923,  or  a  little  over  half,  admitted  that 
they  had  been  imprisoned  before. 

These  two  institutions  may  be  taken  as  showing  the 
averaee  of  re-committals,  in  similar  institutions,  through- 
out  the  country,  which  may  be  set  down  as  50  per  cent.; 
that  is,  one-half  of  all  imprisoned  admit  that  they  have 
been  in  prison  before. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  all  those  imprisoned 
because  of  inability  to  pay  a  fine  imposed  by  some  police 
magistrate,  as  well  as  those  convicted  of  the  smaller 
offenses  only,  are  sent  to  these  institutions;  hence  the 
average  of  re-committals  is  much  higher  than  in  the  other 
prisons. 

For  example,  in  the  Illinois  Penitentiary,  at  Joliet, 
there  were  committed,  during  the  year  ending  Septem- 
ber 30,  1882,  747  convicts.  Of  these,  121,  or  16.20  per 
cent,  admitted  that  they  had  been  imprisoned  in  the  pen- 
itentiary before.  In  some  years  the  average  is  higher. 
It  varies  a  little  in  all  the  penitentiaries,  but  in  many  it  is 


REPEATERS.  171 

25  per  cent. ;  and  if  we  include  the  Southern  States,  where 
negroes  are  frequently  re-committed  for  rather  trivial 
offenses,  it  will  average  30  per  cent.  No  doubt  a  great 
many  are  re-committed  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
prison  officers,  and  consequently  the  number  of  re-com- 
mittals really  exceeds  the  above  estimate. 

Of  the  121,  mentioned  above,  88  were  committed  for  a 
second  term,  29  for  a  third,  5  for  a  fourth,  3  for  a  fifth, 
and  I  for  a  sixth. 

No  doubt  the  average  given  above  of  50  per  cent,  m 
houses  of  correction,  and  30  per  cent,  for  penitentiaries, 
would  be  much  higher  still,  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact 
that  the  average  life-time  of  the  chronic  criminal  is  short; 
exposure  and  misery  carry  him  to  an  early  grave. 

But  this  average  is  much  higher  than  it  should  be. 
The  idea  that  one-half  of  the  several  millions  annually 
arrested  must  go  on  and  become  chronic  criminals,  has 
about  it  something  appalling.  And  when  we  considerthat 
it  is  from  this  throng  that  the  majority  of  the  desperate 
and  vicious  criminals  come,  the  question  again  suggests 
itself  whether  there  is  not  something  the  matter  with  the 
system;  whether  the  system  is  not  responsible  for  a  part 
of  this  result;  whether,  in  fact,  the  system  we  now  have, 
instead  of  being  reformatory  and  preventive,  is  not,  in 
reality,  debasing  and  productive. 

Having  taken  a  general  survey  of  its  size,  cost  and 
results,  and  having  seen  who  are  its  victims,  let  us  con- 
sider its  operations  a  little  further,  especially  so  far  as 
the  effect  on  the  young,  on  the  innocent,  and  on  the  first 
offenders  is  concerned.  And  for  this  purpose  it  is 
important  that  we  have  at  least  some  general  ideas  as 
to  the  character  of  the  average  police  prisons  or  lock-ups. 


172     OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINE  K  V  A  DN  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Lock-Ups. 

Of  these,  Wines,  in  his  great^work  on  prisons,  says: 
"  There  is  another  class  of  prisons,  little  known  or 
thought  of,  but  very  numerous  and  often  extremely 
crowded,  namely,  the  city  prison — station  houses,  or 
lock-ups,  as  they  are  variously  called.  They  almost 
need  a  John  Howard  for  their  sole  reformation.  *  *  * 
It  would  seem,  at  first  thought,  to  be  a  matter  of  slight 
importance,  where  arrested  persons  are  put  for  a  single 
night  or  day,  or  how  treated,  or  under  what  circum- 
stances of  discomfort  kept.  It  is  urged,  'Make  the 
place  intolerable  and  they  will  keep  out  of  it!'  If  they 
would,  the  case  would  be  different,  and  there  would  be 
less  to  say.  If  crime  were  more  effectually  prevented 
by  cruel  treatment  of  the  criminal,  that  would  be  some 
excuse  for  it.  But  all  experience  proves  the  contrary. 
Brutal  treatment  brutalizes  the  wrong-doer  and  prepares  Jiini 
for  7vorse  offenses.  *  *  *  In  studying  what  character  to 
give  to  a  lock-up,  we  must  consider  that  among  the 
occupants  there  will  always  be  a  number  who  are  there 
for  the  first  time  and  the  first  offense.  They  have  been 
caught  in  bad  company,  or  been  guilty  of  some  disorder, 
or  found  sleeping  out  of  doors,  having  no  in-doors 
where  to  sleep;  or  accused  by  the  blunder  of  a  police- 
man, or  held  on  groundless  suspicion. 

"Just  at  that  point  not  a  few  of  these  take  their  first 


LOCK-UPS.  173 

step  in  a  downward  course.  Probably  not  less  than 
ten  per  cent,  of  all  confined  nightly  in  this  class  of 
prisons  are  there  for  the  first  and  trifling  offense,  or  for 
no  punishable  offense  at  all;  and  the  aggregate  number 
every  night  shut  up  in  them,  throughout  the  entire 
country,  can  hardly  be  less  than  from  ten  to  fifteen 
thousand.  Think  of  it!  Not  less  than  a  thousand 
every  night  in  the  year  locked  up  for  the  first  time  for  a 
small  offense,  or  for  no  offense.  Not  a  few  of  them 
children — boys  and  girls  under  fifteen  years  of  age, 
whose  chief  fault  is  that  they  have  never  known  a 
parent's  love,  never  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  a  home, 
never  felt  the  warm  presence  of  Christian  care  and 
kindness.  Truly,  human  justice  is  a  clumsy  machine, 
and    often  deserves  the  punishment  which  it  inflicts." 

Dr.  Eliot,  of  St.  Louis,  contributed,  in  1876,  a  paper 
to  the  New  York  Prison  Congress,  in  which  he  describes 
one  of  these  lock-ups  in  St.  Louis,  in  which  each  cell  is 
twelve  feet  long  by  eight  feet  wide  and  ten  feet  high, 
with  no  windows  and  no  ventilation,  all  the  light  and 
air  being  admitted  through  grated  doors  opening  into  a 
passage.  The  usual  nightly  average  of  occupants  to 
each  cell  is  four  or  five,  on  Sunday  nights  often  going 
up  to  eight  or  ten.     Dr.  Eliot  says: 

"  What  school-houses  of  crime  are  these  !  The  city's 
public  schools  of  vice  and  profligacy,  open  for  men, 
women,  and  children,  every  day  in  the  year,  with  a  dou- 
bly accumulated  crowd  for  the  Lord's  day!  Go  through 
the  lock-ups  of  any  large  city  on  Sunday  night,  and  you 
will  see  where  no  small  part  of  the  primary  instruction 
in  crime — yes,  and  advanced  instruction,  too — is  given, 
and  who  the  learners  are." 


174     OUR  PENAL  MACITINERV  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

I  can  not  add  anything  to  the  above,  and  if  any  one 
doubts  the  correctness  of  the  picture,  I  simply  say  to 
him  :  Go  and  see  for  yourself,  and  be  convinced;  and 
bear  in  mind  that  the  above  condition  is  not  an  excep- 
tion, for  these  stations,  or  lock-ups,  are  very  much  alike 
all  over  the  country,     (See  Jails  and  Re^nedy^ 


CHAPTER  VI. 

County  Jails. 

Mr.  Chas.  E.  Felton,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Chi- 
cago House  of  Correction,  who  has  had  a  wide  expe- 
rience in  prison  management,  has  written  the  following 
concerning  County  Jails: 

"  If  there  is  a  school  for  teaching  vice  and  crime,  it  is 
the  ordinary  county  jail,  in  which  prisoners  are  herded 
in  cells,  and  are  allowed  to  congregate  in  the  halls, 
without  the  least  discrimination  being  made  as  to  cause 
of  detention,  habits  of  life,  physical  condition,  or  previ- 
ous moral  character.  This  fact  as  to  jails  comes  from 
what  would  be  called  heredity,  if  applied  to  the  pecul- 
iarities in  human  character;  but  as  touching  jail  con- 
struction and  management,  it  would  be  as  a  resultant  of 
common  habit.  From  the  earliest  days  down  to  the 
present  time,  jails  have  been  constructed  without  a 
seeming  thought  being  given  toany  other  end  than  that  of 
safety  from  escape  of  their  inmates;  and  in  their  man- 
agement, with  few  exceptions,  there  seems  to  have  been 
but  one  additional  thought,  and  that  was,  'How  can  the 
most  money  be  made  through  the  care  of  their  inmates?' 
Now  that  is  about  the  status  of  the  jail  question  to-day. 
That  our  jails  are  nurseries  of  vice  and  crime  is  a  rec- 
ognized fact — one  which  jail  officials  seldom,  if  ever, 
deny;  and  in  writing  thus  of  them,  it  is  not  the  intention 
to  point  toward  any  one  in  particular  of  the  more  than 
twenty-five  hundred  in  this  country;  nor  to  exclude  but 
few  as  being  different  from  the  others." 

175 


176       OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHTNER  V  A  ND  I TS  J  VC  TIMS. 

That  eminent  authority  upon  prison  and  reform- 
atory work,  Rev.  Fred  H.  Wines,  lately  said  of  the  jail 
system: 

"  It  is  a  system  of  the  association  of  the  clean  with 
the  unclean;  of  the  old  and  the  young;  of  the  innocent 
and  the  guilty;  and,  in  some  jails,  of  men  and  women, 
because  men  and  women  are  not  separated  in  some  jails. 
In  a  jail  in  this  State,  I  have  known  men  and  women  to 
have  the  liberty  of  the  entire  jail,  without  any  interfer- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  jailers.  I  suppose  they  were 
locked  up  at  night;  but  they  were  together  all  the  day. 
Then,  again,  the  jail  is  a  place  of  absolute  idleness.  No 
work  is  provided  for  the  inmates.  In  the  third  place,  it 
is  a  system  in  which  the  State  ignores  its  own  responsi- 
bility, and  throws  the  men  for  whom  it  is  responsible 
into  the  hands  of  incompetent  county  boards.  If  there 
is  an  iniquity  in  this  land  to-day,  it  is  the  county  jail 
system.  I  do  not  know  of  any  greater  iniquity  per- 
petrated to-day  in  tlie  world  than  the  jail  system  of  the 
United  States.  It  originated  in  the  primitive  days  of 
society;  and  there  is  no  reason  for  its  continuance,  except 
that  the  people  have  not  awakened  to  its  enormit}'. 
There  is  no  reason  for  it  in  law,  morals  or  public  policy; 
there  is  no  reason  for  it,  unless,  as  I  have  heard  sug- 
gested, it  is  kept  up,  as  it  is  in  some  cases,  I  suppose,  by 
the  sheriffs,  who  receive  fees  for  looking  after  the  pris- 
oners, and  get  an  allowance  for  dieting  them,  and  they 
are  not  willing  to  give  up  their  perquisites." 

So  much  for  their  character.     As  to  the  remedy: 

The  most  experienced  managers  and  reformers  now 
agree  that  none  should  be  confined  in  county  jails  except 


COUNTY  JAILS.  177 

prisoners  that  are  awaiting  trial  and  are  cliarged  with 
offenses  of  a  character  so  grave  as  to  require  confine- 
ment before  conviction.  And  these  should  not  be  per- 
mitted to  congregate  together,but  be  kept  in  separate  cells 
— well-lighted,  but  so  arranged  that  one  prisoner  can  not 
see  any  other — so  that  those  that  may  be  discharged  can 
not  contract  any  contamination  while  in  jail,  the  prisoner 
being  permitted  to  converse  only  with  the  keeper  and 
with  such  visitors  as  may  be  admitted. 

I  am  informed  by  Gen.  Brinkerhoff,  of  Mansfield, 
Ohio,  that  several  jails  have  been  built  and  are  managed 
on  this  plan  in  that  State,  and  the  result  is  found  to  be 
so  satisfactory,  both  to  keepers  and  to  the  better  class 
of  prisoners,  that  the  general  adoption  of  the  system  is 
most  earnestly  advocated  by  all  who  are  familiar  with 
its  workings. 

I  will  add  that  all  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  such 
a  plan  for  a  county  jail,  applies  with  greater  force  to 
lock-ups. 


1  7  8      OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINE  J?  Y  A  ND  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Effects  of  Imprisonment — Arrests  a  Matter  of  Pride 
— Prison  Principles  —  All  Treated  Alike — No 
Good   Results. 

What  effect  do  arrest  and  imprisonment  Jiave  on  those 
arrested,  more  particularly  on  the  young? 

When  we  consider  the  great  number  annually 
arrested  and  imprisoned,  and  when  we  realize  that  of  all 
these  a  large  majority  are  under  twenty-six  years  of 
age,  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  them  are  under 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  that  in  some  instances  one- 
fifth  of  them  are  females;  and,  still  further,  that  almost 
all  are  of  the  poor — of  the  class  that  needs  encourage- 
ment more  than  almost  anything  else — then  does  the 
effect  of  arrest  and  imprisonment  become  a  most  impor- 
tant question.  However  great  an  improvement  it  may 
be  on  the  past  (and  nobody  disputes  that  it  is)  still  it  is 
not  a  success. 

Turning  now  again  to  the  report  of  the  Chief  of 
Police  of  Chicago,  we  find  that  of  the  32,800  arrested, 
10,743  were  discharged  by  the  police  magistrates,  to  say 
nothing  of  those  that  were  bound  over  to  the  grand 
jury  and  then  discharged.  So  that  during  the  one  year 
there  w^ere  in  that  one  city  upwards  of  10,000  young 
persons,  wdio,  without  having  committed  any  crime, 
were  yet  condemned  toundergoa  regular  criminal  experi- 
ence. Think  of  this  a  moment.  And  if  so  many  in  one  city, 
what  a  multitude  must    there  be  throughout  the  land! 


IMPROPER  ARRESTS.  179 

Mind,  these  were  not  even  offenders.  But  what  was  the 
treatment  which  they  received?  Why,  precisely  the 
same  as  if  they  had  been  criminals.  They  were  arrested, 
some  of  them  clubbed,  some  of  them  handcuffed, 
marched  through  the  streets  in  charge  of  officers, 
treated  gruffly,  jostled  around.  At  the  police  station 
the  name  and  a  complete  description  of  the  person  of 
each  were  written  on  the  prison  records,  there  to 
remain.  Some  of  the  unhappy  creatures  were  bailed 
out,  while  the  remainder  were  shoved  into  cells  and 
forced  to  spend  a  night,  and  sometimes  a  week,  there, 
forced  to  stand  around  with  criminals,  before  they  were 
discharged.  Now,  what  effect  will  this  treatment  have 
on  them?  Will  not  every  one  of  them  feel  the  indignity 
to  which  he  or  she  was  subjected,  while  life  lasts?  Will 
they  all  not  abhor  the  men  who  perpetrated  what  is  felt 
to  be  an  outrage?  Will  they  not  look  on  this  whole 
machinery  as  their  enemy  and  take  a  secret  delight  in 
seeing  it  thwarted?  Will  they  not  almost  unconsciously 
sympathize  with  those  that  defy  this  whole  system,  and 
are  they  not  thus  suddenly  brought  a  whole  length 
nearer  crime  than  they  were  before?  And  will  not  those 
that  were  already  weak,  and  were  having  a  hard  struggle 
for  existence,  be  farther  weakened,  and  therefore  more 
liable  soon  to  become  actual  offenders  than  they  other- 
wise would  have  been?  Remember,  brutal  treatt/ient 
brutalizes  and  thus  prepares  for  crime. 

ARRESTS  A  MATTER  OF  PRIDE. 

At  present,  to  make  numerous  arrests  is  a  matter  of 
pride  with  many  policemer       In  fact,    in  many   places 


I  So      OUR  PENAL  MACIIIXKNY  AXD  ITS  VIC  TIMS. 

their  efficiency,  llieir  standing  as  peace  officers,  actually 
depends  on  and  is  determined  by  the  number  of  arrests 
they  make.  And  the  chiefs  of  police  in  many  villages,  in 
preparing  their  reports,  take  great  pride  in  being  able 
to  report  a  large  number  of  arrests.  There  often  exists 
even  a  rivalry  in  this  respect  between  different  police- 
men on  the  same  scjuad,  each  being  anxious  to  get  the 
credit  of  "running  in  ^' some  poor  wretch,  I  recently 
heard  a  policeman  boast  of  his  magnanimity  toward  a 
brother  officer,  whom  he  allowed  to  make  four  different 
arrests  and  thus  get  his  standing  improved,  when  the 
speaker  could  just  as  well  have  made  them  himself. 

Now  this  is  wrong.  It  begets  the  wrong  kind  of 
efficiency.     It  encourages  unnecessary  arrests. 

In  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  every  unnecessary 
indignity  inflicted,  whether  by  word  or  act,  especially  in 
the  case  of  first  offenders,  only  makes  matters  worse. 
The  person  having  to  submit  to  it  is  therebv  made  the 
enemy  of  the  officers  and  of  the  law\ 

In  reality,  the  police  and  other  officers  of  the  law 
should  be  protectors  and  friends  of  the  poor  and  the 
weak,  and  these  should  naturally  fly  to  the  former,  as  a 
child  to  a  parent,  for  assistance  and  protection.  But 
almost  the  opposite  of  this  is  too  often  the  case.  It  is 
the  poor  and  the  weak  who  are  afraid  of  the  officers,  and 
avoid  them  whenever  possible.  This  is  not  as  is  should 
be.  The  trouble  is  that  too  many  officers  (there  are 
noble  exceptions)  like  to  assert  their  authority  when 
there  is  no  necessity  fordoing  so.  They  are  too  anxious 
to  act  the  master,  when  they  should  act  rather  as 
friends  and  assistants.     As  an  illustration,  take  the  fol- 


IMPROPER  ARRESTS.  i8l 

lowing  case,  reporled  in  the  daily  papers  among  the 
proceedings  of  the  police  courts': 

OFFICER  'S  ASSAILANT. 

"Officer  M.  D. ,  charged  with  assault  and  battery 

by  Addie  M ,  took  a  change  of  venue  when  his  case 

came  up  before  Justice  Prindeville  yesterday,  and  went 
before  Justice  Hammer.  The  evidence  was  not  mate- 
rially different,  from  the  facts  as  published  the  day  after 
the  issuance  of  the  warrants  by  Justice  Prindeville, 
January  3. 

"  Addie  M and  Rosa  L were  arrested  the  day 

before,  charged  with  disorderly  conduct,  and  were  dis- 
charged January  3d,  by  Justice  Prindeville,  on  payment 
of  costs.     When  they  stepped  outside  the  court    room, 

Officer tried  to  arrest  Addie  M for  an  attempted 

assault  with  a  deadly  weapon  on  him  when  he  had  Rosa 

L under  arrest  the  day  before,  though  he   had  not 

known  anything  about  the  assault  until  he  was  told  of 

it  afterward  by  Officer  S ,  who  took  a  pocket-knife 

from  Addie  M 's    hand.     Justice    Hammer   said    he 

thought  it  a  little  singular  that  a  man  should  have  to  be 
told  about  an  assault  on  himself,  and  said  the  arrest  at 
the  court-room  door,  without  a  warrant,  was  unauthor- 
ized under  the  circumstances,  and  fined  him  $3,  the 
lowest  fine  for  this  offense. 

"There  are  some  facts  in  regard  to  Officer ,  and 

his  fight  against  this  woman,  which  were  not  brought  out 
in  evidence.  A  few  nights  ago  he  arrested  her  on  a 
charge  of  disorderly  conduct,  but,  as  nothing  was  proved 
against  her,  she  was  discharged  by  Justice  Prindeville. 


1 82      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

Having  gained  the  animosity  of  this  officer,  she  will 
have  a  lively  time,  for  the  whole  police  force  is  now 
arrayed  against  her.  A  police  official  said  yesterday 
that  she  would  leave  the  South  Side  if  she  knew  what 
was  good  for  her.'^ 

One  would  think  that  such  an  incident  as  the  above 
W'Ould  cause  the  immediate  discharge  of  the  police  offi- 
cer concerned;  but  nothing  of  the  kind  is  even  dreamed 
of — on  the  contrary,  so  trifling  is  the  matter  regarded, 
that  the  smallest  fine  possible  is  inflicted. 

Think  a  moment  about  this  condition  of  things. 
Even  if  it  were  true  that  the  woman  was  not  of  good 
repute — though  nothing  of  the  kind  was  proven — 
would  her  case  not  be  sad  enough  already?  Ought  she 
not,  at  least,  to  be  let  alone  until  she  actually  commits 
an  offense?  What  possible  good  can  result  from  having 
a  brutal  police  officer  seize  her  whenever  he  gets  sight 
of  her,  and  forcibly  drag  her  off  to  the  lock-up  and  make 
her  spend  the  night  there,  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
the  police  officer  thinks  she  is  not  a  chaste  woman  ?  I 
repeat,  suppose  she  was  disreputable,  what  possible  good 
can  come  of  such  treatment?  Is  it  not  alone  sufficient  to 
ruin  her,  even  if  she  were  an  angel  at  the  beginning  ? 
If  this  were  an  isolated  case,  it  might  not  deserve  much 
attention;  but  it  is  simply  a  specimen  of  what  is  hap- 
pening every  day  in  every  large  city  in  this  country. 

Again,  every  year  hundreds  of  persons,  generally 
boys,  are  "run  in"  by  the  police,  simply  because  they 
have  been  found  sleeping  in  sheds,  stables  and  other 
like  places,  and  have  been  unable  to  give  a  satisfactory 
account  of  themselves.     When  their  case  is  called  by  th^ 


IMPROPER  ARRESTS.  183 

police  magistrate,  they  are  charged  with  being  vagrants, 
or  with  being  disorderly;  a  fine  is  imposed,  which  they, 
of  course,  are  not  able  to  pay,  and  then  they  are  sent  to 
the  Bridewell  to  work  out  their  fines.  Here  they  remain 
from  ten  days  to  six  months. 

See  how  tenderly  we  care  for  the  hom.eless.  If  a  boy 
who  has  nowhere  to  go,  when  nature  is  exhausted,  ven- 
tures to  lie  down  in  a  shed,  we  seize  him  with  the  strong 
arm  of  the  law,  as  if  he  had  committed  a  murder,  and 
forthwith  send  him  to  prison.  Now,  what  effect  does 
all  this  have?  The  sentences  are  short,  for,  as  the  un- 
fortunate beings  were  not  charged  with  anything  in 
particular,  the  sentence  could  not  well  be  long.  They 
are  imprisoned  "for  the  fun  of  it,"  as  it  were,  "just  to 
keep  them  out  of  mischief,  you  know."  But  what  will 
they  do  when  they  get  out?  Why,  nothing  is  left  then 
but  to  do  the  same  thing  and  make  the  same  prison 
rounds.  Would  it  not  be  madness  even  to  imagine  that 
any  good  could  come  of  this  ?  Experience  has  shown 
over  and  over  that  just  the  opposite  follows;  that  this 
process  produces  exactly  those  results  which  society  is 
anxious  to  prevent. 

As  early  as  1822,  the  Hon.  Hugh  Maxwell,  District 
Attorney  of  New  York,  speaking  of  this  class  of  cases, 
said  : 

"None  of  these  have  actually  been  charged  with 
crime,  or  indicted  and  arraigned  for  trial.  It  includes 
those  only  who  are  taken  up  as  vagrants,  who  can  give 
no  satisfactory  account  of  themselves;  children  who 
profess  to  have  no  homes,  or  whose  parents  had  turned 
them  out  of  doors  and  taken  no  care  of  them;  beggars 


1 84      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

and  other  persons  discovered  in  situations  which  imply 
the  intention  of  stealing,  and  numbers  who  were  sleep- 
ing in  the  streets  or  stables.  These  miserable  objects 
are  brought  to  the  police  office  under  suspicious  circum- 
stances, and,  according  to  the  result  of  their  examina- 
tions, they  are  sentenced  as  before  mentioned.  Many 
of  these  are  young  people,  on  whom  the  charge  of  crime 
can  not  be  fastened,  and  whose  only  fault  is  that  they 
have  no  one  on  earth  to  take  care  of  them,  and  that  they 
are  incapable  of  providing  for  themselves.  Hundreds, 
it  is  believed,  thus  circumstanced,  eventually  have  re- 
course to  petty  thefts,  and  commit  the  misdemeanors  in 
order  to  save  themselves  from  the  pinching  assaults  of 
cold  and  hunger.  That  many  of  these  might  be  saved 
from  continued  transgression,  no  one  can  doubt  who 
will  examine  the  records  of  the  police  office.  Many 
notorious  thieves,  now  infesting  the  city,  were,  at  first, 
idle,  vagrant  boys,  imprisoned  for  a  short  period  to  keep 
them  from  mischief;  a  second  and  third  imprisonment 
is  inflicted,  the  prison  becomes  familiar  and  agreeable, 
and  at  the  expiration  of  their  sentences  they  come  out 
accomplished  in  iniquity." 

Since  Maxwell  wrote  the  above,  more  than  sixty 
years  have  confirmed  his  observations  and  shown  that 
the  above  treatment  defeats  its  purpose  and  produces 
not  only  the  repeaters  for  our  prisons,  but  the  thieves 
and  dangerous  criminals  we  so  much  dread.  Is  it  not 
time  to  try  something  else?  The  Inspectors  of  the  Pen- 
itentiary for  the  Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania,  in 
their  report  for  1881,  say  on  this  head: 

"Yearly   the  crime-cause   of  youths  is  developing; 


PRISON  PRINCIPLE.  185 

yearly  the  temptations  to  crime  are  increasing;  yearly  it 
is  more  and  more  apparent  that  the  state  has  utterly 
neglected  provision  for  a  large  number  of  minors  who 
are  moving  in  the  direction  of  crime,  because  there  is  no 
adequate  prevention  presented.  Congregating  youth  in 
a  place  of  detention,  more  of  a  prison  than  a  refuge — 
for  loss  of  liberty  by  compulsion,  and  detention  by 
force,  is  all  that  a  prison  pretends  to  be — is  too  often 
making  criminals  of  some  who  else  might  be  restored  to 
good  conduct  and  made  useful  citizens.  It  is  congre- 
gation under  such  circumstances  that  produces  the  mis- 
chief. Congregating,  associating  youth,  deprived  of 
their  freedom,  as  a  penalty  for  some  offense  of  omission 
or  commission,  is  but  training  them  by  such  associations 
for  no  higher  aim  in  after  life.  The  stigma — the  fact  of  a 
c\\X3iSX  prison  graduaiio/i — docs  not  tend  to  lift  up  the  man  out 
of  the  degradation  of  suchyoutliful  associations." 

THE  PRISON  PRINCIPLE. 

The  Superintendent  of  the  Michigan  State  Reform 
School,  in  his  report  for  1880,  says: 

"The  prison  principle  is  hateful  to  the  adult  delin- 
quent; to  the  youthful  offender  it  is  abhorrent.  The 
prison  principle  in  reform  peculiarly  outrages  the 
nature  of  child  life;  the  shock  penetrates  his  being,  and 
body  and  soul  rise  up  against  it  in  fiercest  antagonism. 
*  *  *  To  the  boy,  the  bolted  door,  the  barred  window, 
the  walled  yard,  and  other  contrivances  of  brute  force, 
are  enemies  that  he  will  resist  with  all  the  force  of  his 
nature,  though  he  is  apparently  rendered  helpless 
against    them.     I    believe  that   these    barriers   against 


lS6       OUR  FEA'AL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

the  cravings  of  his  child  nature,  instead  of  tending  to 
his  reform,  have  rather  a  contrary  effect,  and  will  hastily 
develop  any  criminal  germs  v^hich  may  exist  in  his 
nature.  The  question  does  not  naturally  occur  to  him, 
'How  shall  I  reform  through  these  agencies?'  but 
rather,  '  How  may  I  escape  from  them? '  ^md  to  the  so- 
lution of  this  question  his  best  energies  are  devoted. 
*  *  *  It  frequently  causes  expressions  of  surprise  to 
see  children  of  such  tender  age  and  innocent  appear- 
ance brought  to  our  institution,  and  the  question, 
'  What  could  he  have  done?'  is  asked  very  often;  and 
yet  it  is  of  common  occurrence  for  a  powerful  ofificer  to 
present  himself  at  our  office,  having  in  his  custody  a 
frail  lad  who  has  scarcely  seen  ten  summers,  bound 
with  handcuffs  to  prevent  him  from  escaping  or  from 
making  an  assauU  on  his  brave  custodian!" 

What  is  here  said  about  the  effect  of  the  prison  prin- 
ciple on  a  bo}',  applies  with  equal  force  to  the  adult  who 
is  not  yet  inured  to  crime. 

ALL    TREATED    ALIKE. 

At  present,  so  far  as  personal  treatment  is  concerned, 
all  offenders  are  treated  precisely  alike,  with  the  one  ex- 
ception of  the  length  of  sentence  imposed  at  the  time  of 
conviction.  And  even  herein  strange  things  are  done. 
But,  as  already  stated,  the  personal  treatment  is  the  same 
in  all  cases.  The  man  entirely  innocent,  as  well  as  the 
boy  arrested  for  some  trifling  offense,  is  treated  from 
first  to  last  like  the  midnight  burglar,  the  highway  rob- 
ber, or  the  chronic  criminal.  Arrested  on  the  street, 
and  not  infrequently  clubbed,  often  handcuffed,  and  lec^ 


ALL   TREATED  ALIKE.  187 

in  irons  to  the  police  station,  he  is  there  pushed  into  a 
cell  as  if  he  were  a  dumb  brute.  He  spends  a  night 
with  the  vicious  of  every  kind.  In  the  morning  the 
police  magistrate  goes,  as  a  matter  of  business — and,  if 
it  were  a  matter  of  conscience,  he  could  not,  under  exist- 
ing laws,  do  much  better — to  the  station  to  dispatch 
the  ten  to  forty  cases  that  have  been  put  on  his  docket 
since  the  previous  morning,  and,  being  anxious  to  get 
away,  he  performs  his  task  in  the  shortest  order  possi- 
ble. The  cases  are  called,  one  after  another,  in  rapid 
succession,  as  if  they  represented  so  many  bundles  of 
merchandise  to  be  shipped,  and,  as  each  is  called,  the  po- 
lice officer,  who  has  made  the  arrest,  makes  his  statement; 
the  prisoner  may  say  something  if  he  wishes,  and  this  is 
generally  all  there  is  of  the  trial.  In  this  proceeding, 
the  boy  mentioned  fares  precisely  like  the  old  offender 
with  a  heinous  crime.  He  takes  his  position  on  the  saw- 
dust in  the  bull-pen  till  his  case  is  called,  and,  if  dis- 
charged, goes  free  (and  it  appears  that  in  1882  over 
10,000  were  discharged  in  one  city  by  the  police  magis- 
trates alone,  showing  that  nearly  one-third  of  all  those 
arrested  were  wrongfully  arrested).  If  not  discharged, 
and  the  charge  be  one  which  the  grand  jury  must  con- 
sider, he  is  bound  over,  and,  failing  to  give  bond,  is  sent 
to  jail.  There  he  is  weighed  and  measured,  the  color  of 
his  hair  and  eyes  is  set  down — in  short,  a  complete 
description  is  taken  of  him.  Then  he  is  hustled  off 
among  a  number  of  other  prisoners,  the  iron  door  is 
shut  behind  him,  and  he  stays  there  for  weeks — some- 
times for  many  months — before  his  case  is  reached. 
Then,  perhaps  the  grand  jury  refuses  to  find  ari  indict- 


1 88       OUR  PEXAL  MACHINERY  AXD  ITS  VICTIMS. 

nicnt  (for  nearly  one-fourth  of  those  bound  over  are  not 
indicted),  and  in  tliis  case  he  is  discharged.  Should  lie 
be  indicted,  he  is  arraigned  and  sent  back  to  jail.  In 
the  course  of  weeks,  sometimes  months,  his  case  is  tried, 
If  then  acquitted  by  a  jury,  he  goes  free;  if  not,  he  is 
sentenced  to  a  further  period  in  jail,  or  is  sent  to  the 
house  of  correction,  where  he  is  set  to  work  among  sev 
eral  hundred  prisoners,  some  of  whom  are  of  the  most 
abandoned  sort.  Having  served  out  his  sentence,  he  is 
set  free.  If,  however,  the  offense  for  which  he  was 
arrested  is  one  for  which  the  police  magistrate  can 
impose  a  fine,  then,  instead  of  being  sent  to  jail  and 
going  the  round  mentioned  above,  he  is  fined;  and,  hav- 
ing no  money  to  pay,  is  put,  with  a  great  many  others, 
into  an  omnibus,  or  "Black  Maria,"  with  iron  bars  at 
windows  and  door,  and  is  then  driven  to  the  house  of 
correction — a  short  term  penitentiary — to  serve  out 
his  fine.  Of  course,  if  he  has  friends  who  will  bail  him 
out,  or  pay  his  fine,  he  will  escape  a  part  of  the  imprison- 
ment. 

In  the  meantime,  the  vicious  and  hardened  crim.inal, 

arrested  for  burglary,  for  highway  robbery,  or  for  some 
other  equally  heinous  crime,  is  treated  precisely  like  the 
boy  whose  case  we  have  been  considering,  except  that 
when  taken  from  the  jail  he  is  taken  to  the  penitentiary 
and  is  sentenced  for  a  longer  term  of  imprisonment. 

NO    GOOD    RESULTS. 

Now,  does  anybody  suppose  that  a  boy  or  a  man, 
either  innocent  or  guilty  of  only  a  trifling  offense,  will 
be  benefited  by  this  kind  of  treiitment?    Doei  clubbing 


EFFECTS  OF  IMPRISONMENT.  1 89 

a  man  reform  him  ?  Does  brutal  treatment  elevate  his 
thoughts?  Does  handcuffing  Jill  him  with  good  resolves? 
Stop  right  here,  and  for  a  moment  imagine  yourself 
forced  to  submit  to  being  handcuffed,  and  see  what  kind 
of  feelings  will  be  aroused  in  you.  Submission  to  that 
one  act  of  degradation  prepares  many  a  young  man  for 
a  career  of  crime.  It  destroys  the  self-respect  of  others 
and  makes  them  the  easy  victims  of  vice.  Even  the 
morally  strong  will  look  back  with  hatred  to  the  day  on 
which  they  were  subjected  to  outrage,  and,  down  deep 
in  their  souls,  they  will  hate  the  system,  and  the  men  who  , 
wronged  them. 

Every  man  is  sensitive  about  the  treatment  of  his 
person,  and  feels  that  he  is  injured  when  he  is  rudely 
jostled  about,  or  forced  into  humiliating  surroundings. 
Is  it,  then,  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  remainder  of 
the  treatment  above-mentioned — the  thrusting  into  a 
cell  with  old  criminals,  the  standing  in  the  so-called  bull- 
pen, or  prisoner's  dock — will  not  injure  those  that  are 
innocent,  or  that  it  can  possibly  have  any  reformatory 
influence  upon  the  young  man,  who,  although  he  has  vio- 
lated some  law,  is  not  yet  depraved,  has  not  yet  lost  his 
self-respect,  and  is  yet  desirous  of  living  an  honorable 
life?  Nay,  if  he  has  any  ambition  at  all,  will  it  not  have 
just  the  opposite  iniluence?  Will  he  not  wish  to  be 
avenged?  Will  he  not  consider  this  whole  machinery 
as  his  foe,  and  will  he  not  be  more  ready  than  ever 
before  to  commit  crime,  if  he  can  but  escape  detection? 
I  claim,  therefore,  that  imprisonment  for  trifling  offenses 
before  convictions,  except  in  extreme  cases,  is  wrong  in 
principle,  and  works  a  great  injury  not  only  to  those 
imprisoned,  but  to  society  itself. 


190        OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

To  save  tlie  wecik  and  neglected  from  becoming 
criminals,  tlie  all-important  thing  is  to  develop  and  to 
build  up  their  self-respect — their  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. So  long  as  this  is  wanting,  their  natural  course 
is  downward;  and  any  act  that  tends  to  crush  this  only 
pushes  them  lower  down. 

In  October,  1870,  there  was  held  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
a  National  Prison  Reform  Convention.  It  met  in  pur- 
suance of  a  call  signed  by  a  large  proportion  of  the 
governors  of  the  States  and  upwards  of  one  hundred 
persons  eminent  in  the  cause  of  prison  reform.  The 
convention  was  composed  of  several  hundred  members 
from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  and  was  presided  over  by 
the  Governor  of  Ohio.  Being  largely  made  up  of  per- 
sons familiar  with  the  practical  management  of  prisons, 
and  deeply  interested  in  the  subject  of  prison  reform, 
its  proceedings  were  distinguished  for  marked  ability. 
It  continued  in  session  six  days  and  did  a  great  amount 
of  work.  As  a  result  of  its  deliberations,  it  formulated 
and  adopted,  with  almost  entire  unanimity,  a  declara- 
tion of  principles,  thirty-seven  in  number,  of  which  the 
sixth  is  so  apposite  to  the  point  now  under  consideration 
that  I  give  a  part  of  it  here: 

"  Sixth.  It  is  essential  to  a  reformatory  prison  treatment 
that  the  self-respect  of  the  prisoner  should  be  cultivated  to  the 
utmost  extent,  and  that  every  effort  be  made  to  give  back  to  him 
his  manhood.  Hence  all  disciplinary  punishment  that  inflicts 
njinecessary  pai7i  or  humiliation  should  be  abolished  as  of  evil 
influence.  *  *  *  There  is  no  greater  ?nistake  in  the  ivhole 
compass  of  penal  discipline  than  its  studied  imposition  of  degra- 
dation as  a  part  of  pimishment.       Such  imposition   destroys 


LOWERING  SELF-RESPECT.  191 

every  better'  impulse  and  aspiration;  it  crushes  the  weak,  irri- 
tates the  strong,  and  indisposes  all  to  submission  and  reform. 
It  is  trampling  where  ive  ought  to  raise,  and  is,  therefore,  as 
unchristian  in  principle  as  if  is  unwise  in  policy." 

If  the  imposition  of  degradation  has,  on  actual  con- 
victs, the  effect  described  above,  what  effect  must  it 
have  on  the  innocent,  and  on  the  thousands  who  are 
daily  dragged  into  our  police  prisons  not  even  charged 
with  a  crime,  but  simply  with  being  disorderly?  Incredi- 
ble as  it  may  seem,  we  now  daily  take  thousands  who 
are  not  criminals  and  subject  them  to  almost  every  kind 
of  degradation — do  what  we  can  to  crush  the  weak  and 
to  irritate  the  strong — do  what  we  can  to  destroy  the 
self-respect  of  all  and  send  them  from  bad  to  worse; 
and  when  they  finally  land  in  the  penitentiary,  then  we 
discover  that  in  order  to  restore  them  to  society  we 
must  undo  everything  we  have  done. 


192       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Treatment  in  Higher  Prisons — Cruelty  Never  Ef- 
fected A  Conversion — The  Wonder  is  that  any 
Survive. 

Recently  there  have  been  some  revolts  in  several 
penitentiaries,  and  precisely  those  in  which,  according  to 
report,  the  greatest  cruelty  is  practiced — notably  in  one 
of  the  penitentiaries  of  New  York,  in  that  of  Missouri, 
and  in  that  of  Arkansas.  In  the  last  State,  the  convicts 
are  leased  and  the  lessees  manage  the  institution  as  a 
close  corporation,  refusing  to  give  anybody  any  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  convicts. 

Concerning  this  prison,  Mr.  Wines,  in  his  great  work 
on  Prisons,  at  page  200,  says: 

"Theleasesystem  of  prison  labor  in  Arkansas  has  been 
weighed  in  the  balance  by  a  joint  legislative  committee, 
and  clearly  found  wanting  by  the  evidence  as  well  as  by 
seven  of  the  sixteen  members  of  the  committee.  The 
evidence,  as  is  commonly  the  case  in  such  inquiries,  was 
not  a  little  contradictory;  but  to  my  conception  the 
following  points  were  established:  That  the  prisoners 
were  not  properly  nourished,  being  fed  mostly  on  beef 
and  corn  bread,  with  vegetables  occasionally,  but  not 
commonly — the  beef  being  so  poor,  so  devoid  of  nutri- 
tive qualities,  and  so  indigestible,  that  its  introduction 
into  the  human  stomach  proves  an  irritant  which  gen- 
erates the  larger  part  of  the  diseases,  such  as  diarrhoea, 
dropsy,  etc.,  known  in  the  institution.     That  the  prison- 


EFFECTS  OF  CRUEL    TREATMENT.  193 

ers  are  overworked,  the  hours  of  labor  being  usually 
more  than  twelve  per  day,  and  those  who  work  on  a 
farm  five  miles  from  the  penitentiary  being  often  forced 
to  walk  or  trot  rapidly,  especially  in  returning  after 
work,  thereby  inducing  over-heat,  haemorrhages,  heart 
disease,  and  other  forms  of  sickness.  That  shocking 
cruelties  are  practiced  upon  the  prisoners  to  get  w^ork 
out  of  them,  as  well  as  to  maintain  discipline,  so  that 
many  bear  marks  of  violence  upon  their  persons  for 
months  after  its  infliction.  That  the  hospital  is  unfit 
for  its  purpose,  being  extremely  filthy  and  noisome; 
sheets  and  pillow-cases  often  dirty  or  wholly  wanting; 
food  unsuited  to  the  needs  of  such  persons,  proper  stim- 
ulants deficient  and  hard  to  get — the  whole  being  more 
likely  to  intensify  and  even  generate  disease  than  to 
serve  as  an  agent  in  its  cure.  And  that,  to  sum  up  all 
in  a  word,  the  penitentiary  is  turned  into  a  speculative 
establishment,  in  which  the  convicts  are  the  stock  in 
trade  of  the  lessee,  in  the  prosecution  of  v.'hose  business 
they  are  so  many  mechanical  contrivances,  to  be  used 
for  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  operated  with  little 
regard  to  the  fact  that  they  are  children  of  the  same 
Father,  or  even  that  they  are,  blood  and  tissue,  vitalized 
and  controlled  by  the  same  physiological  laws  of  waste 
and  repair  common  to  all  mankind." 

On  the  other  hand,  in  those  institutions  which  have 
been  managed  most  successfully,  where  the  best  results 
have  been  achieved,  equally  in  maintaining  discipline,  in 
making  the  prison  self-sustaining  and  in  reforming  the 
prisoner,  kindness  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  factor 
in  the  treatment.     Quoting  again  from  Mr.  Wines: 


194      OUR  PENAL  MACHINEEY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

"  Cruel  treatment  was  once  generally  esteemed  the 
most  sure,  just,  and  only  fitting  method  of  penal  disci- 
pline. But  the  period  is  well  passed  when  the  interior 
of  a  prison  is  to  be  the  arena  for  the  exercise  of  brutal- 
izing forces  upon  erring  and  wicked  men.  The  thought 
and  action  of  the  present  have  emerged  from  the  dark 
shadows  of  the  last  century.  Surely,  all  means  of  penal 
control  which  are  severally  restrictive  of  the  mental, 
moral  and  physical  good  of  the  convicted  criminal,  and 
manifestly  tyrannical,  simply  because  an  opportunity  is 
afforded  or  created,  do  not  conserve  the  high  purpose  of 
calm,  helpful  justice.  The  government  which  works 
out  the  best  results  for  its  subject  secures  therefrom 
something  more  than  a  machine-like  obedience.  Sub- 
mission to  rules,  and  the  concurrence  in  an  enforced 
task,  wiiich  are  not  beyond  reason,  can  be  secured  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases,  in  well  regulated  prisons,  by 
means  which  are  at  hand  and  which  are  far  removed 
from  cruelty.  In  so  doing,  the  prisoner's  self-control  is 
evoked,  and  habits  of  industry  acquired,  which  can 
never  be  brought  about  by  the  crushing  process  so 
much  lauded  by  conceited  and  inexperienced  prison 
reformers." 

On  this  point,  the  inspectors  of  the  Maine  peniten- 
tiary say: 

"  For  many  years  the  discipline  of  the  prison  has  not 
been  as  strict  as  at  many  other  prisons;  it  has  not  de- 
graded the  prisoners  below  the  brute  creation,  but  has 
recognized  them  as  men,  and  taught  them  to  believe 
that  the  State  had  an  interest  in  them  beyond  their  term 
of  imprisonment.     For  this  reason  I  believe  that  a  large 


EFFECTS  OF  CRUEL    TREATMENT.  195 

majority  of  them  have  left  the  prison  without  bitter 
and  revengeful  feelings,  and  with  a  determination  to 
live  better  and  more  useful  lives.  To  this  state  of  affairs 
is  largely  attributable  the  fact  that  there  is  very  much 
less  of  crime  in  Maine,  in  proportion  to  its  population, 
than  in  any  other  State." 

CRUELTY   NEVER   EFFECTED    A    CONVERSION, 

In  the  entire  history  of  the  human  race  there  is  not  a 
single  instance  in  which  cruelty  effected  a  genuine  ref- 
ormation. It  can  crush,  but  it  can  not  improve.  It  can 
restrain,  but,  as  soon  as  the  restraint  is  removed,  the 
subject  is  worse  than  before.  The  human  mind  is  so 
constituted  that  it  must  be  led  toward  the  good,  and 
can  be  driven  only  in  one  direction,  and  that  is  toward 
ruin. 

Florian  J.  Ries,  inspector  of  the  House  of  Correction 
of  Milwaukee,  in  the  management  of  which  he  achieved 
a  signal  success,  says,  in  his  report  for  1880: 

"  The  subject  of  reforming  convicts  is  one  that  ought 
to  be  entitled  to  the  very  first  consideration  in  the  man- 
agement of  a  prison.  The  idea  that  a  prison  is  solely  an 
institution  for  the  punishment  of  violators  of  tlie  law,  is 
fast  becoming  obsolete,  and  one  more  humane  and  in 
keeping  with  our  advanced  civilization  is  taking  its 
place.  Experience  has  taught,  and  humanity  demands, 
that  the  discipline  of  a  prison  be  directed  more  toward 
the  moral  improvement  of  its  inmates  than  to  punish- 
ment or  to  torture."  And  in  his  report  for  1881,  he  says: 
"  As  to  the  management  of  prisoners,  I  have  very  little 
to  add  to  my  report  of  last  year;  7ny  experience  has  fully 
convinced  me  iluii  by  Jdiul  treatment  and  by  appealin^^  to  t lie  bet- 
ter itistincis  of  human  nature.,  better  results  can  be  obtained 


196      OUR  PE^VAL  MACITLYERY AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

than  in  any  oi/ier  7vciy."  (The  italics  are  mine)  He  then 
adds:  "  Yet  all  that  may  be  accomplished  with  the  pris- 
oner in  this  manner,  inside  the  prison,  will  be  of  little 
avail  after  he  is  discharged,  unless  he  finds  friends  who 
are  willing  to  lend  him  a  helping  hand,  and  encourage 
him  in  his  effort  to  lead  a  better  life."  But  this  only 
demonstrates  tlie  necessity  of  letting  him  earn  some- 
thing for  himself  before  discharge,  so  that  he  can  main- 
tain himself,  as  explained  under  the  head  of  Prison 
Labor. 

THE    WONDER    IS    THAT    AXY    SURVIVE. 

The  real  wonder  is,  not  that  so  large  a  percentage  of 
those  once  arrested  and  imprisoned  become  hardened 
and  inured  to  crime,  but  that  comparatively  so  few  do. 
The  wonder  is  that  any  are  able  to  outlive  and  overcome 
the  effects  of  their  degrading  experience;  and  the  fact 
that  over  half  of  them  do  so,  shows  that  human  nature 
is  not  so  depraved.  For  all  these  live  respectable  lives, 
not  by  reason  of,  but  in  spite  of,  their  experience.  As  the 
American  Colonies  prospered  in  spite  of,  and  not  by  rea- 
son of,  the  protection  Great  Britain  had  given  them  — 
the  protection  having  been  wholly  of  a  kind  that  tended 
to  impoverish  the  Colonies  —  so  the  large  percentage  of 
men  once  arrested,  who  do  well,  do  so  in  spite  of,  and 
not  by  reason  of,  their  hated  experience. 

The  principle  and  love  of  right,  the  longing  to  be 
respectable  and  to  live  honorable  lives,  was  so  strong  in 
them  that  it  overcame  the  degrading  influences  to  which 
they  had  been  subjected.  Herein  lies  one  of  the  objec- 
tions to  our  present  system.  It  applies  the  crushing 
process  to  those  that  are  already  down,  while  the  crafty 
criminal  —  especially  if  he  be  rich  —  is  gently  dealt  with. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Punishment  Must  Be,  First,  Necessary;  and,  Second- 
ly, Calculated  to  Produce  the  Desired  Result 
— Examples  Under  the  Present  System. 

Society  never  has  claimed,  and  does  not  now  claim, 
the  right  to  punish  for  an  infraction  of  the  moral  law. 
The  right  to  chastise  for  an  act  which  has  been  a  viola- 
tion of  the  eternal  principles  of  right  and  justice,  has 
always  been,  and  still  is,  conceded  to  be,  the  exclusive 
prerogative  of  the  Almighty.  Society  never  claimed 
more  than  the  right  to  punish  for  a  violation  of  its  laws; 
and  this  right  has  always  been,  and  still  is,  based  on  the 
benefit  to  be  done  to  the  whole. 

The  fundamental  principle  upon  which  man  assumes 
the  right  to  punish  his  fellow  man,  is,  that  society  as  a 
whole  may  be  protected.  It  is,  therefore,  clear  that  the 
imposing  of  any  punishment  that  is  not  necessary  for  the 
protection  of  society  \s  \x\\\\'diXv^x\^.QA  and  wrong;  is  abso- 
lutely indefensible  upon  any  ground  whatever;  is  noth- 
ing less  than  a  deliberate  injury,  done  by  the  strong  to 
the  weak,  and  is,  therefore,  in  the  highest  degree,  cow- 
ardly; and  no  man  can  participate  in  such  an  act  with- 
out becoming  morally  accountable  for  the  injury  thus 
done  to  another. 

Secondly,  it  is  also  clear  that  any  penalty  thus  \xn- 
^0"^^^,  which  does  not  tend  to  protect  society,  xviwsX.  be  inde- 
fensible, and,  like  the  other,  a  wrong  inflicted  by  the 
strong  upon  the  weak,  for  which  there  can  be  no  excuse. 

197 


19^     OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CULVER  V  A  XD  I TS  J  VC  TIMS. 

True,  society  has  to  learn  by  experiment,  and  it 
therefore  may  be  excused  for  some  things  done  in  tlie 
hope  that  they  will  result  in  protecting  the  whole.  But 
whenever  experience  shows  that  certain  things  do  not 
answer  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  intended,  then 
the  right  to  continue  them  ceases.  That  is,  whenever 
it  becomes  apparent  that  certain  acts  done  for  purposes 
of  punishment  do  not  serve  the  purposes  for  which  they 
were  intended — /.  c,  do  not  tend  to  protect  society — 
then  tlie  right  to  continue  or  to  repeat  tliem  ceases,  and 
any  further  repetition  of  them  will  be  simply  a  wrong 
done  by  society  to  one  of  its  members,  an  injury 
inflicted  by  the  strong  upon  the  weak;  and  it  is  no 
excuse  to  say  that  the  member  had  first  injured  society, 
for  one  wrong  never  justifies  another.  If  society  has 
been  injured,  it  may  punish  the  offender  in  order  to  pre- 
vent a  repetition  of  the  offense,  either  on  his  part  or  on 
the  part  of  others;  but  it  must  prescribe  a  punishment 
or  treatment  that  will  be  likely  to  produce  this  result, 
and  it  has  no  right  whatever  to  do  an  act  which  it  has 
found  does  not  serve  this  purpose.  As  an  example 
under  the  first  head,  take  the  case  of  a  cigar-maker  in 
a  small,  country  town,  who  is  arrested  by  a  United  States 
marshal,  taken  seventy  or  eighty  miles  for  an  examina- 
tion before  a  United  States  commissioner,  then  bound 
over  to  the  grand  jury,  and,  being  unable  to  give  bail, 
is  put  into  prison  for  from  one  to  six  months,  until  that 
body  meets.  Then  he  is  indicted  and  kept  in  jail  some 
time  longer  until  he  can  be  tried,  and  when  tried  he  is 
convicted,  is  fined  from  ten  to  one  hundred  dollars — 
and  all  this  not  because  he  is  really  a  vicious  man,  not 


r  UNI  SUM  EN-  T.  r  99 

because  he  is  a  dangerous  man,  not  because  he  had 
stolen  something  or  injured  somebody,  but  simply 
because  he  had  failed  to  put  a  dollar  revenue-stamp 
on  a  small  box  of  cigars  which  he  had  manufactured 
and  sold.  He  ma}^  be  an  industrious,  sober  man,  strug- 
gling to  the  best  of  his  ability  to  make  his  family 
respectable  and  comfortable.  But  all  this  counts  for 
nothing.  Some  United  States  detective  has  been  prying 
into  the  little  shop;  a  technical  violation  of  the  revenue 
law  has  been  discovered;  there  is  a  chance  for  the 
detective  to  win  some  credit  for  alertness,  and  for  the 
United  States  marshal,  United  States  commissioner,  and 
prosecuting  attorney,  to  make  some  fees.  So  the  man 
is  arrested,  dragged  away  from  his  family,  who  are  fre- 
quently left  without  any  means  of  support  in  the  mean- 
time, and  is  treated  precisely  as  if  he  had  committed  a 
murder  or  a  highway  robbery.  Could  anything  possi- 
bly be  more  absurd? 

Granting  that  the  law  had  been  violated,  and  that  it 
was  proper  to  inflict  some  punishment  when  the  man  was 
convicted,  will  anybody  claim  that  it  was  necessary  to 
arrest  him  and  to  keep  him  in  jail  a  long  time  before  he 
was  convicted?  —  and  if  it  was  not  necessary^  then  it  was 
not  justifiable.  As  the  offense  was  trivial,  and  the  danger 
of  escape  therefore  slight,  he  should  not  have  been  de- 
prived of  his  liberty  until  convicted.  For,  mark  you, 
wealthy  offenders  are  never  thus  dealt  with.  They  are 
always  able  to  give  bail;  so  that  it  is  only  the  poor  who 
are  thus  made  to  suffer.  Cases  of  similar  wrongs  are 
of  much  more  frequent  occurrence  under  the  State  and 
municipal  laws.   Almost  daily  there  are  arrests  on  trivial 


2  oo      0  UR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  V  A  .VD  I TS  J  'IC  TIMS. 

charges,  where,  in  case  of  conviction,  the  punishment 
generally  is  only  a  fine,  and  therefore  there  is  no  danger  of 
escape;  yet,  as  the  persons  arrested  are  not  able  to  give 
bond  for  their  appearance,  there  is  no  alternative  but  to 
send  them  to  jail,  there  to  remain  for  weeks,  frequently 
for  months,  before  they  can  be  tried.  And  when  tried, 
if  convicted,  they  are  simply  fined,  or  possibly  have  a 
short  jail  sentence  imposed.  Now,  in  nearly  all  these 
cases,  it  is  vnneccssary\.ovi\^k.Q.  arrests  in  the  first  instance, 
as  a  civil  proceeding  w^ould  answer  every  purpose  until 
the  trial;  then,  if  the  fine  is  not  paid,  it  is  early  enough 
to  introduce  the  jail.  Arrests,  in  the  first  instance,  in  this 
class  of  cases  being  tninccessary,  they  are,  as  above  shown, 
unjustifiable,  and  are  productive  of  much  harm  w^ithout 
any  compensating  good. 

Again,  things  are  daily  done  in  the  name  of  punish- 
ment which  common  sense  condemns,  which  all  experi- 
ence has  shown  to  be  productive  of  just  the  opposite 
results  from  those  designed  and  desired,  and  which 
society  has,  therefore,  no  right  to  continue  doing.  Thus, 
of  the  7,566  prisoners  committed  to  the  House  of  Cor- 
rection at  Chicago,  during  1882,  4,787  were  simply 
charged  with  breach  of  the  peace.  Granting  that  some 
of  these  had  committed  grave  offenses  and  the  charge 
was  changed,  still  could  anything  be  more  unreason- 
able than  every  year  to  subject  over  4,000  human  beings 
to  a  regular  criminal  treatment,  as  heretofore  described, 
simply  because  they  had  been  guilty  of  hilarious  or  dis- 
orderly conduct? 


CHAPTER  X. 

Imprisoning  Women. 

It  appears  from  the  report  of  the  Superintendent  of 
,  Police  of  Chicago,  that  in  1882,  *6,835  women  were 
arrested  and  taken  to  .the  police  prisons  in  Chicago, 
and  that,  during  that  year,  1,800  women  were  incarcer- 
ated in  the  Chicago  House  of  Correction,  mostly  for 
non-payment  of  fines,  which  had  been  imposed.  Of  the 
latter  number,  359  were  reported  prostitutes,  871  were 
servants,  114  were  launders,  and  all  were  poor.  Now, 
can  any  good  come  of  thus  treating  unfortunate  women? 
What  are  they  to  do  when  released?  Can  anybody  tell? 
The  359,  whom  the  officers  call  prostitutes,  and  think 
that  a  sufficient  accusation  to  excuse  any  kind  of  treat- 
ment, were  not  the  petted  children  of  sin,  not  those  that 
live  in  gilded  palaces  and  dress  in  silks  and  satins,  for 
these  are  rarely  disturbed;  they  were  the  poor,  unfortun- 
ate and  forlorn  creatures  who,  without  friends,  without 
sympathy,  without  money,  often  hungry,  and  without 
sufficient  clothing  to  protect  them  from  the  cold  winds, 
wander  out  on  th»  streets,  not  so  much  wantonly  as 
from  necessity,  literally  trying  to  sell  their  souls  for  a 
morsel  of  bread,  dealing  in  shame,  not  from  choice,  but 
because  every  Christain  door  is  shut  against  them, 
because  there  is  no  place  where  they  can  work  and  find 
shelter.     Now,  in  what  condition  are  they  when   they 

*  The  number  has  been  increasing  every  year  with  the  number  of  arrests. 
201 


202        OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

have  gone  through  the  above  experience?  What  are 
they  to  do  when  again  set  at  liberty?  Experience  has 
answered  this  a  hundred  times.  They  return  to  their 
old  ways,  because  there  is  nothing  else  that  they  can  do; 
the  only  difference  being  that  they  have  become  more 
degraded,  more  brutalized,  by  the  treatment  which  they 
have  received,  and  from  which  no  good  ever  has  or  ever 
can  come.     Is  it,  therefore,  reasonable  to  continue  it? 

Take  the  other  1,450  women  who  in  1882  were  incar- 
cerated in  the  Chicago  House  of  Correction;  what  is  to 
become  of  them  when  released?  What  can  they  do? 
For  what  has  the  prison  fitted  them?  Some  of  them,  no 
doubt,  havehomes  to  which  they  can  go;  but  they  will 
enter  these  more  degraded  because  of  the  experience 
they  have  had,  and  instead  of  being  better  prepared  to 
resist  temptations  than  formerly,  they  are  weaker  and 
more  liable  to  go  downward  than  otherwise.  As  to  the 
remainder — those  that  have  no  homes  where  they  can 
be  received  and  taken  care  of — what  are  they  to  do? 
Where  will  they  be  admitted?  How  can  they  make 
an  honest  living  ?  There  is  no  answer  to  these  questions, 
and  the  probability  is  that  the  great  majority  will  be 
literally  driven  to  get  their  bread  by  the  wages  of  sin, 
and  go  down  the  path  of  vice  and  misery,  dragging  out 
an  existence  that  will  long  for  death.  Now,  wherein 
has  society  been  benefited  or  protected  by  the  above 
treatment?  Clearly,  in  no  way.  On  the  contrary,  it 
has  done  to  itself  an  injury,  and  to  the  wretched  beings, 
who  were  charged  only  with  slight  offenses,  a  great 
wrong. 

It  is  both  unnecessary  and  unsuitable. 


IMPRISONING  WOMEN.  203 

In  the  reports  of  the  proceedings  in  the  city  police 
courts,  as  published  in  the  daily  papers,  you  can  see 
almost  every  day,  items  like  the  following: 

"The  seventy  vagrant  and  disreputable  women  cor- 
raled  in  the  basement  pen  of  the  Desplaines  Street 
Police  Station,  Wednesday  night,  were  brought  before 
Justice  C.  J.  White  yesterday  in  a  lump.  Sin-hardened, 
sad,  poor  and  unhappy,  the  haggard  crew  presented  a 
sickening  sight.  Most  of  them  escaped  with  light  fines, 
the  justice  recognizing  that  these  wrecks  of  human 
beings  deserved  merciful  consideration." 

"Bridget  Smith,  a  poor  woman  whose  path  through 
this  world  has  led  her  through  several  terms  in  the 
Bridewell,  was  found  drunk,  in  the  snow,  Sunday  night, 
at  the  corner  of  Desplaines  and  Adams  streets.  For  this 
mistaken  idea  of  getting  enjoyment  out  of  life,  Justice 
C.  J.  White  sentenced  her  to  another  short  term  in  the 
said  institution  and  a  $10  fine." 

And  at  another  time  the  following: 
"There  seems  to  have  been  a  general  raid  by  the 
West  Side  police  on  the  disreputable  women  found  on 
the  streets.  At  ail  events,  twenty  of  the  poor  creatures 
were  before  Justice  White  yesterday,  and  fourteen  were 
arraigned  in  Justice  Woodman's  court.  They  were 
mostly  a  dissipated,  worn-looking  lot,  most  of  them 
shabbily  dressed,  but  three  of  them  were  young  and 
rosy,  and  one  was  a  mere  child,  hardly  fifteen  years  of 
age.  Fines  ranging  from  $1  to  $5  were  inflicted,  and 
the  poor,  misguided  mortals  passed  out  of  court." 

Reflect  on  this  a  moment!     Was  it  necessary  to  drag 
in  these  unfortunate  creatures  every  few  weeks  and  cor- 


204       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

ral  them  like  cattle?  And  wherein  has  society  been 
benefited  by  the  whole  proceeding?  What  object  was 
there  in  all  this?  Certainly  none  can  be  perceived, 
except  to  make  a  large  amount  of  fees  for  the  police 
justices.  Several  dollars  cost,  in  each  case  in  which  the 
fine  is  paid,  extracted  from  these  miserable  people,  may 
be  satisfactory  to  the  police  justice,  but  w^hat  is  to 
become  of  the  women?  One  of  the  accounts  says,  "they 
passed  out  of  court."  Of  course  they  did,  but  where? 
Where  did  they  go?  Whither?  Why,  a  great  many  of 
them  to  the  Bridewell,  because  they  did  not  have  $3  or 
$5  in  the  world,  nor  any  friend  to  pay  the  amount  for 
them.  And  when  they  get  out  of  the  Bridewell,  what 
are  they  to  do?  Is  there  any  other  course  open  than  to 
make  the  same  round?  Mind  you,  they  were  not  the 
gay  and  luxurious  sirens,  for  these,  though  numerous, 
were  not  disturbed. 

Now,  if  it  were  even  conceded  that  some  measures 
were  necessary  in  the  matter,  it  certainly  can  not  be 
claimed  that  the  proceedings  given  above  were  neces- 
sary, much  less  that  society  is  benefited  by  them.  This 
being  so,  where  is  the  justification  for  these  proceed- 
ings? 

Take  the  woman  found  drunk  in  the  snow.  She  is 
sent  to  prison  time  after  time — simply  to  lie  down  again 
in  the  snow.  The  very  frequency  of  the  sentences  shows 
that  they  only  aggravate  the  case,  and  serve  no  good 
purpose;  then,  why  continue  repeating  them? 

Take  the  following  item  from  the  police  court  pro- 
ceedings: 

"The  officers  of  the  Humane  Society  brought  William 


IMPRISONING   WOMEN.                           205 
Hogan,  his  wife  and  four  children  into  Justice  R 's 


court  yesterday  for  disposition.  They  had  been  ex- 
isting in  a  hovel  at  the  corner  of  Stave  street  and  Arm- 
itage  avenue,  in  the  most  squalid  poverty  and  destitu- 
tion. There  was  no  food  or  fuel  in  the  place,  and  little 
or  no  bedding.  The  family  were  in  rags,  were  dirty, 
and  were  all  covered  with  vermin.  Their  condition,  as 
they  appeared  in  the  court-room,  was  at  once  disgusting 
and  pitiable.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hogan  were  sent  to  the 
Bridewell,  and  the  children,  aged  five,  seven,  nine  and 
eleven  years,  were  sent  to  the  Home  for  the  Friendless." 
Think  of  a  system  that  will  send  a  woman  to  a  pen- 
itentiary simply  because  she  is  the  mother  of  four  small 
children  and  has  a  husband  who  either  can  not  or  will 
not  support  her!  As  to  the  husband,  if  he  was  unable 
to  do  anything,  he  should  not  have  been  sent  to  the 
Bridewell;  and,  if  able,  then  he  should  be  required  to 
earn  something  for  his  family.  We  have  already  too 
long  kept  up  the  practice  of  crowding  our  prisons  with 
those  that  ought  not  to  be  there,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
we  find  that  prisons  no  longer  have  any  terrors  for  those 
that  should  be  there. 


2o6      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The   Present    Indiscriminate  Fining  Leads  To  No 
Good   Results. 

If  any  person  wants  an  accurate  idea  of  the  manner 
in  which  this  system  is  carried  on,  let  him  attend  one  of 
our  so-called  police  courts  on  some  morning  when  from 
ten  to  thirty  miserable  beings,  many  filthy  and  squalid, 
are  "  trotted  through."  The  charges  are  usually  of  the 
minor  sort — "drunk,"  "  disorderly,"  etc.  Generally  a 
fine  of  from  five  to  one  hundred  dollars  is  imposed;  and 
what  then?  Well,  if  the  unfortunate  creatures  can  not 
oay  it  they  are  packed  into  the  omnibus  and  taken  to 
the  house  of  correction,  as  already  mentioned,  and  there 
they  '■''it'ork  it  out,"  as  heretofore  explained,  the  time 
required  for  this  purpose  being  from  ten  days  to  six 
months;  and  wiien  they  get  out,  the  conditions  in  which 
they  lived  before  having  in  no  way  improved,  on  the 
contrary,  generally  having  become  worse,  they  almost 
immediately  make  the  same  rounds  again,  and  then  again, 
getting  a  little  worse  every  time  until  they  land  in  the 
penitentiary. 

But  in  many  cases  the  fine  is  paid,  often  even  after 
commitment  to  the  house  of  correction;  and  of  course 
the  prisoner  is  discharged. 

But  who  generally  pays  this  fine?  Here  is  the  vital 
question.  Usually  the  prisoner  does  not  pay  it,  for  as  a 
rule  he  has  nothing  but  the  rags  on  his  back.  Well, 
then  who  pays  it?  Why,  generally  his  squalid  family. 
The  wife  pawns  whatever  she  may  have  left  in  order  to 


RESULTS  OF  FINING.  207 

get  her  husband  out;  or  more  often  it  is  the  mother  who 
already  is  unable  properly  to  feed  and  clothe  her  smaller 
children,  and  who  is  suffering  from  the  ailments,  both 
physical  and  mental,  that  a  life  of  poverty  and  misfort- 
une entails,  but  who  will  yet,  by  heroic  effort,  scrape 
together  enough  pennies  to  pay  her  child's  fine  and  get 
him  out.  Well,  the  fine  being  paid,  then  what?  Why, 
the  conditions  being  all  the  same,  the  companionship 
the  same,  there  having  been  nothing  reformatory  or 
elevating  in  the  experience  through  which  the  offender 
has  gone,  he  is  in  no  wise  better,  is  no  more  industrious, 
r.o  more  sober;  and,  instead  of  being  morally  stronger 
and  better  able  to  overcome  the  weakness  that  got  him 
into  trouble,  his  prison  experience  has,  if  anything, 
lowered  him;  he  is  less  able  now  to  cope  with  the  world 
than  he  was  before,  and  the  almost  invariable  result  is 
that  he  goes  the  same  round  time  after  time,  becoming 
constantly  more  vicious,  and  in  the  end  swells  the  num- 
ber of  hardened  criminals.  Take  the  hundreds  of  poor 
women  fined  in  the  police  courts;  if  they  themseb/es 
pay  their  fines,  it  takes  usually  their  last  penny,  and  not 
infrequently  the  very  money  with  which  they  pay  the 
fine  is  the  earnings  of  shame.  So  that  while  the  law  with 
one  hand  prohibits  vice,  it  pockets  the  earnings  of  vice  with  the 
other. 

Now  every  time  a  fine  is  paid  in  any  of  the  cases  men- 
tioned, the  crime-producing  conditions  have  been  aggra- 
vated; the  want  existing  before  has  been  intensified; 
the  offender  has  not  been  benefited,  while  his  family 
has  been  injured.  Fines  should  therefore  be  imposed 
only  in  exceptional  cases,  where  nothing  of  a  reforma- 
tory character  is  required. 


2oS     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

FORMALITY — INEQUALITY    OF    SENTENCES. 

The  present  system  \?,  formal, iron-bound  and  superficial; 
every  case  has  to  go  through  the  same  steps,  no  matter 
how  much  the  circumstances  may  differ;  the  proceed- 
ings must  be  the  same,  no  matter  how  trifling  the  charge; 
the  accused  must  be  arrested,  must  then  either  give  bond 
or  be  locked  up  until  he  can  be  tried  and  the  fact  be  ascer- 
tained whether  he  is  even  guilty  of  the  trifling  offense 
charged  or  not,  and,  if  found  guilty,  then  no  matter  what 
the  condition  of  the  accused  may  be,  whether  old  or 
young,  vicious  or  merely  weak,  male  or  female,  there  is 
but  one  course  open,  and  this  for  all  alike;  that  is,  to 
impose  a  fine,  and,  if  this  is  not  paid,  to  send  the  accused 
to  the  jail  or  to  the  Bridewell.  The  magistrate  is  not  to 
blame;  it  is  the  law,  the  system,  which  is  at  fault. 

If  the  State  were  to  enforce  a  system  of  medical 
practice,  and  were  to  provide  that  but  one  prescription 
should  be  given  for  all  the  ills  that  afiflict  the  flesh,  it 
would  not  be  more  absurd  than  is  the  oresent  system  of 
treating  offenders. 

INEQUALITY    OF   SENTENCES. 

In  the  Fifth  Biennial  Report  of  the  Michigan  State 
Board  of  Corrections  and  Charities,  1879-80,  the  subject 
of  "  Inequality  of  Sentences  "  is  thus  considered: 


INEQUALITY  OF  SENTENCES.  209 

"  Having  still  in  view  our  analogy  between  crime  and 
mental  disease,  which  analogy  we  do  not  claim  to  be  one 
that  is  perfect  and  holding  at  all  points,  yet  holding  suf- 
ficiently to  justify  what  we  have  said  and  what  we  shall 
say,  we  shall  conclude  this  paper  by  a  few  moments' 
commentary  upon  the  sentences  of  the  courts. 

"  We  can  stay  but  for  a  single  example  of  the  inequality 
of  sentences,  growing  out  of  qualifying  circumstances 
and  the  inability  of  judges  to  see  things  alike,  or,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  one  referred  to,  form  opinions  even  for 
themselves. 

"Assault  with  intent  to  commit  murder,  intenfionhexng 
the  gauge  of  crime,  necessarily  implies  the  ^///7/ of  mur- 
der. 

"  In  Michigan,  during  the  year  ending  September  30, 
1877,  there  were  eight  convicts  sent  to  the  State  prison 
for  assault  with  intent  to  commit  murder — one  for  for- 
ty-five  years,  one  for  twenty-five  year?,  one  for  fifteen 
years,  one  for  nine  years,  one  for  six  years,  one  for  five 
years,  one  for  two  years  and  one  for  one  year. 

"It  is  supposable  that  these  eight  men,  so  sentenced 
for  the  same  technical  offense,  may  have  been  seen  in 
prison  working  in  the  same  department,  eating  at  the 
same  table,  listening  to  the  same  prayers  in  the  chapel, 
with  occasional  opportunities  for  surreptitious  exchange 
of  notes  as  to  their  respective  allotments  of  justice  and 
their  progress  in  reformation — reformation  being  agreed 
upon,  in  all  such  conferences  as  this,  as  one  of  the  chief 
ends,  if  not  the  chief  end,  of  punishment. 

"This  inequality  of  sentences  runs  through  all  the 
courts.     Cases  like  this  (an  actual  case)  occur  somewhere 


2IO     OUR  PENAL  MACIIIXERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

in  the  United  States  every  month  in  the  year.  At  the  same 
term  of  the  court  a  bank  teller,  for  a  theft  of  $500  from 
his  employers  or  from  a  customer,  is  released  on  nomi- 
nal or  suspended  sentence,  while  a  boy  of  seventeen  is 
sentenced  to  prison  for  three  years  for  stealing  a  second- 
hand suit  of  clothes  worth  less  than  %2o\  producing  in 
appearance  distortions  of  justice  a  little  like  Lord  Dun- 
dreary's distortion  of  proverbs  when  he  says,  'one  man 
is  hanged  for  looking  a  gift  horse  in  the  mouth,  while 
another  may  see  the  whole  animal  over  a  hedge  and  get 
clear.' 

"The  damage  to  society  of  a  given  offense  can  be 
approximately  estimated;  the  guilt  of  the  transaction  is 
beyond  man's  power  of  measurement. 

"Then  why  not  better  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  and 
proceed  for  the  good  of  society;  estimate  the  offense 
according  to  its  damage  and  danger  to  society,  and  at 
once  remove  the  offender,  not  for  one,  two,  ten,  or  forty- 
five  years,  but  until  he  is  apparently  restored  to  such 
condition,  whether  mental  or  moral,  or  both,  as  will  give 
the  public  reasonable  assurance  of  safety? 

"  If  there  were  high  courts  or  commissions  in  lunacy, 
and  they  were  to  commit  eight  maniacs  who  had  at- 
tempted murder,  from  one  State,  in  a  single  year,  to  an 
insane  hospital  for  terms  varying  from  one  to  forty-five 
years,  it  would  at  once  be  apparent  to  all  that  the  high 
court  itself  was  wildly  insane.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
would-be  murderers  were  sent  to  a  hospital  until  wholly 
restored  to  reason,  the  conduct  would  appear  to  be  rea- 
sonable. 

"But,  if  the   criminals   are  put  under  restraint  by  a 


INEQ  UALIT  Y  OF  SENTENCES.  2 1 1 

if 
similar  seclusion  in  buildings  suitable  for  the  purpose, 

that  is,  in  prisons  properly  provided  and  graded,  it  may 
be  asked:  How  shall  it  be  ascertained  with  certainty 
when  they  are  so  far  reformed  as  to  make  their  enlarge- 
ment safe  to  society? 

"  The  answer  is,  that  we  can  not  know  with  certainty, 
but  it  can  be  known  at  least  equally  well  in  this  case  as 
in  the  cases  of  insanity.  Some  insane  patients  are  dis- 
charged apparently  cured,  three,  five  or  ten  times,  but 
are  found  still  dangerous  to  society,  and  have  to  be 
returned  to  the  hospitals,  and  ultimately  die  without 
recovery.  There  will  be  mistakes,  incident  to  imperfect 
human  knowledge. 

"Criminals  sentenced  for  limited  terms  are  dis- 
charged and  re-committed  over  and  over  again,  with 
this  difference  against  the  good  sense  of  the  proceeding, 
that  there  is,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  no  appearance  of 
reformation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  perfect  knowledge  on 
the  part  of  the  authorities  that  they  are  turned  out  more 
and  more  dangerous  to  society  at  each  successive  time." 

The  following  table,  taken  from  the  Report  of  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Illinois  Penitentiary  at  Joliet,  for 
the  year  ending  September  30,  1882,  shows  what  incred- 
ible difference  there  is  in  the  length  of  sentences  imposed 
for  the  same  offense  in  the  State  of  Illinois: 


212       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


Comparative  Table  of  Sentences  and  Crimes,  shoivint^  their  relative  con- 
nection with  the  number  of  convicts  in  the  Illinois  State  Penitentiary, 
Septefnberjo,  18S2. 


Sentences. 

Crimes. 

c3 

u 

c 
0 

rt, 
<u 
>> 

0 

T3 

C 

rt 

V 

c 
0 
c 
di 

C3 

c 
0 

1 

■a 
c 
a! 

>. 
0 
& 

H 

c 
0 

1 

c 
rt 

01 

>. 

u 

Si 
H 

c 
0 

1 

■a 
c 

nj 
>. 

3 
0 

c 
0 

0 

rt 

•a 
c 
rt 

n) 
u 

> 

c 
0 

u 

■a 

c 
nl 

w. 

rt 

>, 
0 
■a 
c 
nl 

C/3 

c 

0 

rt 

•a 
c 

01 

01 
u 

c 
<u 
H 

c 
0 

1 

12 

rt 

ID 
>. 

c 

(U 

3 
0 

0 

C 

> 

4; 

3 
"u 
C 

ol 

C 
& 
0 

c 

CI 

E 

c 
01 
x: 

ii 
•a 
c 
0! 

01 
0 
>^ 

c 

u 

> 

0 

C 
01 

J3 
C 
0 

0 

I 
2 

I 

I 
I 

I 
I 

"t 
6 
2 

I 

I 

33 
22 

3 
I 

.  ■ 

7 
4 

7 

33 
15 

2 

2 
6 

I 

10 

5 

I 

2 

3 

4 
2 
I 

II 

2 

I 

2 
I 

I 

? 

I 
2 

Q 

2 

? 

Assault  to  commit  felony 

? 

Assault  to  commit  larceny 

Assault  to  do  bodily  injury.    . . . 

I 

I 

4 
6 

3 
3 
I 

I 
I 
2 

4 
I 

2 

I 

2 

I 

3 

I 

2 

? 

5 
2 

2 

I 

27 

Assault  to  murder 

36 

TO 

Assault  to  rob     

6 

2 

Being  found  in  postoffice  with  in- 
tent to  steal 

2 

Bigamy . . . 

2 

I 

3 

T 

73 
42 

16 

5 

87 

45 

I 

49 
39 

I 

19 
16 

33"^ 

Burglary  and  larceny..  .  , 

T03 

Burglary  and  larceny  and  arson. 

Burglary  and  larceny  and  assault 

to  kill                  

5 

Burglary  and  larceny  as  bailee.. 
Burglary,  murder  &  assault  to  kill 
Burglary  with  intent  to  steal...  . 

I 

I 

3 
3 

I 
4 
4 
I 
I 
2 
I 

I 

3 

2 

I 
I 

I 

2 
I 

I5 

Conspiracy  to  commit  offense... 

Cruelty  to  children        

I 

4 
I 

False  affidavit  to  procure  money 

INEQUALITY  OF  SENTENCES. 


213 


S 

ENTENCES. 

Crimes. 

1) 
C 
0 

t 

I 

•a 
c 
rt 
u 
c 
0 
c 
u 

oa 

c 
0 

0 

•a 
C3 
rt 

rt 
«; 
>. 

0 

0 
0 

Ui 

•a 
c 

t 

d 

V 

>. 

<u 

(U 

c 
2 

u 

■a 

c 

n! 

rt 
u 
>. 

u. 
3 
0 
(I, 

c 
0 

t! 

nl 

C 

d 
X 

> 

c 
0 

0 

t 

■a 

c 

rt 

u 
ni 
1) 
>> 

o~ 
•0 

C 
n! 

c75 

c 
0 

1 
c 

d 

>> 

C 
1) 

H 

c 

_0 

2 

d 

c 
<u 

2 

0 

c 
1) 
> 
1) 

w 

<u 

3 

_d 

'S 
d 

0) 

c 

0 

c 
u 

•ii 

c 

d 
.c 

1 

•a 

c 
d 

d 
1) 
>, 
>^ 

c 

1) 

> 

0 

(U 

•0 
C3 
d 
J3 

0 

Felony 

3 
4 

3 

5 
3 

I 

5 
2 

23 
4 

I 

I 

2 

10 

4 

I 

5 

5 
10 

2 
I 

I 

2 
3 

I 
26 

5 

I 

56 

2 
I 

I 

I 

I 
31 

2 
I 

5g 

20 

2 

2 
29 

2 

2 

56 

8 

/3 
6 

I 

7 

10 

"s 

2 

4 

I 

3 

41 

2 

35 

I 

2 

Forgery  and  larceny.    . . . 

Grand  larceny  &  burglary 

Having    in    possession 

burglars'  tools 

Horse  stealing 

16 

7 

3" 

I 

I 

Larceny 

Larceny  &  confid'ce  game 
Larceny  &  Embezzlement 
Larceny  from  postoffice  . 

82 

10 

64 

75 

I 

1 

13 

31 

I 

Larceny    and    receiving 
stolen  propertv 

I 

Larceny  and  robbery.... 
Making  and  uttering  ficti- 
tious notes 

I 
I 
I 
I 

I 
I 
2 

2 

I 
2 

2 
2 

I 
I 

2 

5 
5 
27 
3 
140 
I 

I 

Malicious  mischief   . .    . . 
Manslaughter 

Mavhem 

Murder 

II 

4 

I 

I 

16 

2 

Obstructing  railroad  . . . 
Obtaining  money  by  false 

I 
I 

Passing  U.  S,  cont'fit  coin 

2 

I 

I 
I 

3 
3 

I 
15 

2 
15 

6 

Personating  another  . . . . 

2 

15 

I 

44 

Rape  and  assault  to  rape 
Receiving  stolen  property 

Robbery 

Robbery  and  burglary  . . 

Robbery  and  larceny 

Sodomy 

II 

.' 

12 

10 

3 
7 

155 

^38 

70 

I 

Total 

24c 

4? 

265 

231] 

85 

r.449 

2  14        OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

A  glance  at  tliis  table  shows  that  sentences  imposed 
for  the  same  offense  range  all  the  way  from  one  to 
twenty  years.  Of  course,  allowance  must  be  made  for 
the  fact  that  some  of  the  crimes  were  committed  under 
more  atrocious  circumstances  than  others  of  the  same 
class;  still,  the  great  diversity,  after  all,  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  different  cases  are  tried  before  different 
juries  and  different  judges.  For  it  not  infrequently 
happens  that  in  the  same  court  a  man  who  has  deliber- 
ately committed  a  crime  under  circumstances  showing 
great  depravity,  will  be  sentenced  for  a  much  shorter 
term  than  another  who  has  committed  the  same  offense 
under  circumstances  showing  far  less  depravity.  So 
that,  practically,  we  have  the  same  law  sentencing  the 
hardened  offender  to  a  short  term,  and  the  less  danger- 
ous to  a  long  term  for  the  same  offense.  Now,  if  fixed 
sentences  were  entirely  abolished  and  indeterminate  sen- 
tences (to  be  presently  discussed)  were  substitued,  this 
would  not  happen  so  frequently. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

REMEDY. 

I  am  aware  that  it  is  difficult  for  one  man  to  see  all 
sides  of  a  complicated  question,  and  that  all  new  reme- 
dies are  apt  to  prove  crude  and  more  or  less  impractica- 
ble when  attempted  to  be  applied — for  the  perfect  rem- 
edy is  the  outgrowth  of  experiment.  Still,  every  im- 
provement must  have  a  beginning,  crude  though  it  be; 
therefore,  I  venture  to  give  my  views  freely,  and  leave  it 
to  those  who  have  examined  and  considered  the  subject 
more  thoroughly  to  suggest  something  better. 

In  discussing  a  remedy,  it  is  important  to  keep  in 
mind  the  exact  difficulties  to  be  remedied,  or  that  are 
capable  of  being  remedied,  which  in  the  present  case 
are: 

ist.  That  many  are  imprisoned,  before  trial  and  after, 
and  broken  into  the  prison  life  and  brought  into  contact 
with  the  criminal  atmosphere,  and  thus  started  on  the 
downward  road,  who  ought  not  to  have  been  imprisoned 
at  all,  and  who,  had  they  been  differently  treated,  might 
have  made  good  citizens. 

2d.  That  the  pole  star  of  the  present  system  seems  to 
he.  punishment,  whereas  the  protection  of  society  should 
be  its  sole  object,  and  as  punishment  never  made  a 
sincere  convert,  and  as  the  multitude  of  first  offenders 
comes  from  the  weaker  class,  they  should  be  treated 
rather  as  wards,  whom  it  may  be   necessary  to  confine, 

215 


2i6        OUR  PENAL  MACHINF.KY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

but  whom  it  is  yet  necessary  to  train  and  educate,  if 
possible,  into  good  citizens. 

3d.  That  at  present  our  prisons  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
reform  the  prisoners,  but  turn  them  loose,  at  the  expira- 
tion of  sentence,  in  a  condition  which  soon  returns  a 
great  per  cent,  of  them  to  prison. 

4th.  That  the  really  vicious  and  dangerous  criminals 
are  treated  like  the  good-intentioned,  but  weak,  are  not, 
at  the  beginning,  convicted  with  promptness;  are  dis- 
charged after  short  terms  of  imprisonment  when  they 
ought  not  to  be,  and  that  in  a  condition  which  almost 
precludes  their  doing  anything  but  committing  crime. 

Keeping  the  foregoing  in  mind,  I  would  suggest: 

First.  The  abolishing  of  the  fee  system,  so  that  no 
petty  officials  will  be  directly  interested  in  having  arrests 
made  for  the  sake  of  earning  a  few  dollars  of  money; 
the  State  should  pay  all  officials  a  salary  for  discharging 
their  duties. 

The  Maryland  Legislature,  by  acts  passed  in  1880 
and  1882,  substantially  abolished  \.\\^  fee  system  in  crimi- 
nal cases,  so  far  as  it  related  to  proceedings  before  mag- 
istrates in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  and  the  result  was  a 
falling  off  in  the  number  of  arrests  in  that  city  from  up- 
wards  of  twelve  thousand  to  about  seven  thousand,  or 
almost  half,  in  one  year. 

Second,  Arrest  and  imprisonment  before  conviction 
should  be  permitted  by  law  ^w/y  in  those  instances  where 
it  is  shown  that  the  offender  is  a  dangerous  person,  or 
that  the  offense  with  which  he  is  charged  is  of  a  charac- 
ter so  heinous  as  to  require  his  arrest  and  incarceration, 
or  the  placing  under  bonds  until  he  can  be  tried. 


REMEDY.  21 -J 

This  would  reduce  the  incredibly  large  number  of 
improper  arrests  by  police  and  other  officers.  As  here- 
tofore shown,  of  the  32,800  persons  arrested  by  the  police 
of  Chicago  in  1882,  over  10,000  were  discharged  because 
they  were  not  shown  to  have  been  guilty  of  any  offense 
whatever.  It  would  also  prevent  imprisonment  for 
trifling  offenses,  as  is  now  the  practice.  Thus,  of  the 
7,566  committed  to  the  Chicago  House  of  Correction  in 
1882,  4,787  were  simply  charged  with  a  breach  of  the 
peace,  1,171  with  drunkenness,  673  with  vagrancy,  169 
with  being  inmates  of  disorderly  houses,  222  with  the 
violation  of  miscellaneous  city  ordinances,  and  354  with 
violating  village  ordinances.  The  remainder  of  the 
7,566  were  charged  with  the  following  offenses:  Rob- 
bery, 12;  burglary,  29;  horse  stealing,  i;  assault  with 
intent  to  kill,  21;  assault  with  intent  to  do  bodily  injury, 
3;  conspiracy,  i;  rescuing  prisoners,  i;  obtaining  goods 
under  false  pretenses,  i;  passing  counterfeit  bank  notes, 
4;  vagabondage,  4;  larceny,  113.  So  that  it  will  be  seen 
that  out  of  a  total  of  7,566  committed,  only  190  were 
charged  with  crimes;  and  of  these  190,  the  large  num- 
ber of  113  was  charged  with  larceny,  or  petty  theft, 
whether  the  thing  stolen  was  worth  fifty  cents  or  ten 
dollars. 

But  the  great  majority  were  not  criminals,  and  society 
would  have  been  better  off  if  it  had  not  arrested  and 
incarcerated  them. 

Deducting  the  190  charged  with  offenses  that  are 
considered  criminal,  it  leaves  7,376  that  should  have  been 
differently  dealt  with.  No  blame  is  attached  to  the  offi- 
cers, for  they   simply   carried  out  existing  laws.      But 


::  1 8      OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  Y  A  ND  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 

these  laws  should  be  changed.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
in  very  many  cases  of  drunkenness  and  of  disorderly 
conduct,  if  the  parties  were  taken  directly  to  their  homes 
by  the  officers,  and  nothing  further  done  for  the  first 
offense  except  a  memorandum  of  the  fact  made  by  the 
officers  for  future  reference  in  case  of  a  repetition,  it 
would  have  a  better  effect  than  arrest  and  incarceration. 
And  where  proceedings  are  had,  there  she  '  J,  except  in 
extreme  cases,  be  no  arrest  until  the  trial  is  ended  and  a 
sentence  is  imposed.  This  treatment  of  first  offenders 
would  have  aH  the  benefit  that  can  be  got  from  a  scare 
or  the  terror  of  the  law,  and  none  of  the  degrading  and 
hardening  effects  that  produce  stolidity  and  hatred.  I 
refer  more  particularly  to  the  young  and  to  those  charged 
for  the  first  time  with  any  offense.  Hardened  cases 
would,  under  the  plan  about  to  be  discussed,  soon  be 
weeded  out  and  be  situated  where  it  vva  ,  aL  least,  possi- 
ble for  them  to.  reform. 

In  this  connection,  the  city  should  be  divided  into 
small  police  districts,  with  a  competent  man  in  each, 
who  should  Acquaint  himself  with  the  condition  of  every 
offender,  and  use  his  best  efforts  to  induce  him  to  quit 
bad  associations,  and  who  should  also  find  out  the  home- 
less and  try  to  have  them  cared  for.  This  would  be  a 
great  preventive  of  the  small  offenses  which  are  the 
initiatives  of  criminal  careers.  Every  one  knows  how 
valuable  is  a  little  timely  encouragement.  This  system 
of  a  public  agent  to  look  after  all  cases  of  first  arrests 
for  minor  offenses  has  been  tried  for  a  number  of  years 
in  Massachusetts,  with  most  satisfactory  results.  A  gen- 
tleman who  once  filled  the  position  of  agent,  and  is  now 


REMEDY.  219 

at  the  head  of  one  of  the  excellent  reformatory  institu- 
tions of  that  State,  recently  stated  that  they  had  found 
it  necessary  actually  to  imprison  only  a  little  over  one- 
fourth  of  those  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  police.  In 
most  cases  they  procured  better  homes  for  the  young 
offenders,  and  found  that  they  did  well  thereafter. 
In  Baltimore,  as  I  am  informed,  the  same  plan  has  been 
tried  on  a  smaller  scale,  but  with  most  gratifying  results. 
The  present  neglect  is  productive  of  crime.  In  those 
cases  that  prove  incorrigible,  and  in  which  something 
must  be  done,  and  it  becomes  necessary  to  try  a  party 
for  the  commission  of  further  offenses  of  a  light  charac- 
ter, the  suit  should,  except  in  extreme  cases,  be  begun  b)' 
civil  process.  Then,  this  man  should  either  directly  assist 
the  magistrate  by  sitting  with  him,  or  at  least  should 
testify  to  the  result  of  his  efforts  in  the  case,  giving  fully 
the  character,  habits,  surroundings,  history  and  associa- 
tions of  the  accused,  and  also  show  whether,  from  all  the 
information  obtainable,  there  is  a  reasonable  prospect  of 
the  offender's  yet  reforming  and  living  an  industrious, 
orderly  life,  if  the  sentence  were  suspended.  And  if  the 
magistrate  is  of  opinion  that  there  is  yet  a  reasonable 
prospect  of  reformation,  sentence  should  be  suspended 
and  the  offender  let  go,  with  the  understanding  that  he 
is,  to  a  certain  extent,  under  the  supervision  of  the  super- 
intendent of  the  district,  and  that  he  can  at  any  time  be 
taken  into  custody. 

But  few  Women  would  be  Imprisoned. — It  is  safe 
to  say  that  under  such  a  regulation  very  few  women 
would  ever  have  to  be  incarcerated,  and  the  present  dia- 
bolical practice  of  annually  arresting  thousands  of  friend- 


220     OUR  PENAL  MACHLYERY  AXD  ITS  jyCTElfS. 

less  and  helpless  creatures  for  trivial  offenses — in  many 
cases  for  no  offense  at  all — and  locking  them  up  like  so 
many  cattle  in  cells,  and  then  fining  them  and  sending 
them  to  the  Bridewell,  would  cease. 

If,  however,  the  magistrate  is  of  opinion  that  from 
all  the  information  obtainable,'  there  is  no  prospect  of 
reformation,  then  the  offender  should  be  sentenced  gen- 
erally  to  the  House  of  Correction,  not  for  a  few  days  or 
for  a  few  months,  as  is  now  the  practice,  from  which 
no  good  comes,  nor  can  come,  but  simply  to  the 
House  of  Correction,  the  maximum  time  of  confine- 
ment there  to  be  fixed  by  law,  and  to  be  not  less  than 
several  years,  but  the  actual  time  of  confinement  to  be 
determined  in  each  case  by  the  conduct  of  the  offender, 
as  hereafter  explained. 

The  House  of  Correction  should  be  conducted  with 
some  modifications  upon  the  principle  obtaining  in  the 
Reformatory  at  Elmira,  N.  Y.  This  institution,  as  a 
reformatory,  appears  to  be  far  in  advance  of  any  insti- 
tution of  the  kind  in  this  country,  and  to  be  productive 
of  the  most  gratifying  results.  The  principle  upon 
which  it  is  conducted,  and  upon  which  offenders  are 
confined  there,  is,  in  brief,  this:  The  prisoner  enters  for 
no  definite  time,  except  that  the  maximum  time  is  fixed 
by  law,  and  that  he  must  stay  at  least  one  year.  And 
while  treated  with  firmness,  he  is  yet  treated  kindly, 
and  an  effort  is  made  to  develop  his  self-respect;  he  is 
given  to  understand  that  it  is  largely  for  his  own  good 
that  he  is  confined,  and  that  the  length  of  confinement 
will  depend  on  himself;  that  as  soon  as  he  shows  that 
he  is  able  to  govern  himself,  and  that  he  can  safely  be 


REMEDY.  221 

trusted  to  make  an  honest  living  and  live  an  orderly 
life,  he  will  not  only  be  given  his  liberty,  but  an  effort 
will  be  made  to  find  him  employment.  Then,  as  a  part 
of  his  prison  duties,  every  prisoner  must  attend  a  school 
conducted  within  the  prison-walls,  and  take  a  regular 
course  of  instruction,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  re- 
quired to  do  a  given  amount  of  work  every  day;  thus, 
in  fact,  a  great  many  acquire  there  a  good  education, 
and  a  preparation  for  the  duties  of  life  which  they  never 
would  have  got  elsewhere.  The  conduct  and  develop- 
ment of  the  prisoner  are  watched  from  day  to  day,  and 
when  the  board  of  inspectors,who  at  the  same  time  are  put 
in  possession  of  all  the  facts  relating  to  the  previous  his- 
tory and  condition  of  the  prisoner,  are  of  opinion  that  he 
can  maintain  himself  against  his  evil  propensities  or  sur- 
roundings, they  secure  him  employment,  and  send  him 
out,  as  it  were,  on  a  probationary  parole,  they  continu- 
ing, for  at  least  six  months,  to  look  after  him,  by  cor- 
responding with  his  employer  and  otherwise.  Should 
he  do  well  during  his  probationary  period,  he  is 
dropped;  if  not,  then  the  inspectors  have  the  power 
to  take  him  again  into  custody.  So  different  is  the 
treatment  of  prisoners  in  this  institution  from  that 
in  the  ordinary  prison,  that  such  a  thing  as  an  at- 
tempt to  escape  is  almost  unknown,  although  the  pris- 
oners are  trusted  to  an  extent  which  could  not  be  even 
thought  of  in  other  institutions.  And  in  several  instances 
where  probationers  were  unlucky  in  losing  their  jobs, 
and  were  not  able  to  get  other  work,  rather  than  com- 
mit crimes,  they  came  back  and  voluntarily  entered  the 
prison  until  another  job  was  secured,  when  they  again 
went  out  and  got  along  well. 


222     OCR  PENAL  MACIirXERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

In  connection  li'ith  such  a  system  as  tJtis,  the  prisoner  should 
be  not  only  permitted,  but  required,  to  earn  something  for  him- 
self 7i>hile  in  prison,  over  and  above  the  actual  expense  of  keep- 
ing him,  as  ivill  be  more  fully  explained  in  discussing  Prison 
Labor. 

Under  this  system  none  would  be  subjected  to  the 
prison  influences  except  tliose  whose  character,  vicious 
inclination,  or  confirmed  habits  rendered  their  restraint 
necessary  for  the  best  interests  of  society;  and  this  num- 
ber would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum;  and  these  being 
the  vicious,  could  be  held  in  restraint  until  it  was  thought 
safe  to  liberate  them,  or  until  the  maximum  time  fixed 
by  law  expired. 

Thirdly.  As  to  the  lighter  offenses  that  are  yet  classed 
with  crime,  such  as  petty  thefts,  etc.,  the  treatment, 
instead  of  being  alike  in  all  cases,  as  at  present,  should 
be  varied  to  meet  each  particular  case;  instead  of  being 
bound  over  to  the  grand  jury,  as  now,  they  should  be 
tried  at  once  by  magistrate  and  jury.  The  treatment 
described  under  the  last  head  should,  to  a  great  extent, 
be  followed.  The  superintendent  should  investigate  the 
previous  character,  habits,  condition,  and  associations  of 
the  offender,  and  the  magistrate  or  jury  should  deter- 
mine, in  each  case,  first,  whether  the  accused  is  guilty  of 
the  offense  charged,  and,  secordly,  the  magistrate  should 
determine  whether  sentence  should  be  suspended  as 
discussed  above. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  offenses  of  the  character  now 
under  consideration  are  often  committed  by  parties  who 
are  not  criminals,  and  who,  if  properly  treated,  would 
never  again  be  guilty  of  any  offense,  the  simple  detec- 


REMEDY.  223 

tion  alone  being  sufficient  for  all  purposes  of  reform, 
while  additional  prison  treatment  would  only  harden 
and  debase. 

Fom-thly.  As  to  those  guilty  of  the  graver  offenses,  and 
all  those  cases  that  show  a  deliberate  criminal  intent,  they 
should  be  tried  at  once,  directly  upon  information  of 
the  prosecuting  attorney,  or  upon  warrant  sworn  out  by 
private  parties,  instead  of  being  sent  by  the  circuitous 
grand  jury  route  as  now.  And  on  the  trial  all  that  can 
be  learned  about  the  previous  condition,  character, 
habits,  etc.,  of  the  prisoner  should  be  shown,  not  sim- 
ply by  his  friends,  but  by  the  prosecution,  the  jury  to 
determine  whether  the  prisoner  is  guilty  of  the  offense 
charged,  but  nothing  more.  In  fixing  sentence,  the 
prisoner,  if  young  and  the  offense  is  his  first,  should  be 
sentenced  generally  to  the  House  of  Correction.  If  not, 
or  if  he  has  shown  strong  criminal  propensities,  he 
should  be  sent  to  the  penitentiary  under  an  indetermin- 
ate sentence;  the  maximum  as  well  as  the  minimum 
time  of  confinement  being  fixed  by  law.  There  he 
should  be  not  only  permitted,  but  required,  to  earn 
something  to  be  carried  to  his  credit  before  being  again 
discharged,  as  will  be  explained  hereafter;  so  that  when 
again  set  free  he  will  not  be  in  a  condition  in  which  he 
can  scarcely  do  anything  except  beg,  starve  or  steal. 

Note. — The  law  of  Massachusetts,  just  referred  to,  provides  for 
the  appointment  of  probation  officers,  who  shall  examine  the  con- 
ditions of  every  person  arrested,  and,  if  they  think  best,  endeavor 
to  save  him  from  imprisonment.  This  law  has  produced  results  so 
astonishing  that  I  here  give  its  most  important  features,  and  also  a 
summary  of  the  results  of  the  first  ten  years'  experience  under  it 
in  and  about  Boston.  Having  provided  for  the  appointment  of  pro- 
bation officers — one  in  each  district — and  for  the  manner  in  which  no- 


2  24      OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CIITNER  V  A  AW  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 

tice  shall  be  given  them  of  every  arrest,  among  other  things,  it  says: 
Section  75.  Such  probation  officer  shall  carefully  inquire  into 
the  character  and  offense  of  every  person  arrested  for  crime  in  his 
city  or  town,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  the  accused 
may  reasonably  be  expected  to  reform  without  punishment,  and 
shall  keep  a  full  record  of  the  results  of  his  investigations. 

Section  76.  Such  probation  officer,  if  satisfied,  upon  investiga- 
tion, that  the  best  interests  of  the  public  and  of  the  accused  would 
be  subserved  by  placing  him  upon  probation,  shall  recommend  the 
same  to  the  court  trying  the  case,  and  the  court  may  permit  the  ac- 
cused to  be  placed  upon  probation,  upon  such  terms  as  it  may  deem 
best,  having  regard  to  his  reformation.  [When  probation  is  recom- 
mended by  the  officer,  the  prisoner  is  practically  released  on  his 
own  bond.j 

Section  78.  He  shall  attend  the  sessions  of  the  courts  held 
within  said  county  for  criminal  business,  investigate  the  cases  of 
persons  accused  or  convicted  of  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  and  rec- 
ommend to  the  courts  the  placing  on  probation  of  such  persons  as 
may  reasonably  be  expected  to  reform  without  punishment.  He 
shall  have  a  place  in  the  office  of  the  superintendent  of  police. 
When  he  deems  it  advisable  for  any  person  placed  on  probation  to 
be  sent  out  of  the  State  at  the  expense  of  the  city,  the  city  council 
may  make  the  necessary  appropriation  for  the  purpose,  to  be 
expended  by  him,  under  the  direction  of  the  superintendent  of 
police,  and  he  shall  render  an  account  of  such  expenditures,  with 
the  items,  quarterly,  to  said  superintendent.  He  shall,  also,  as  far 
as  practicable,  visit  the  offenders  placed  on  probation  by  the  court, 
at  his  suggestion,  and  render  such  assistance  and  encouragement 
as  will  tend  to  prevent  their  again  offending.  Any  person  placed 
upon  probation,  upon  his  recommendation,  may  be  re-arrested  by 
him,  upon  approval  of  the  superintendent  of  police,  without  further 
warrant,  and  again  brought  before  the  court;  and  the  court  may 
thereupon  proceed  to  sentence,  or  may  make  any  other  lawful  dis- 
position of  the  case. 

The  law  was  passed  in  1878,  and  on  January  i,  1889, 

Mr.  Edward  H.  Savage,  probation  officer  for  the  central 

district  of  Boston,  made   a  report  of  his  work   for  the 

year  1888,  showing  that  during  the  year  there  had  been 

referred  to  him  1,056   cases   in  his  district,  which  were 

disposed  of  as  follows: 


REMEDY.  235 

Done  well  and  were  dismissed 473 

Sent  to  their  country  homes 329 

Sent  to  charity  homes 138 

Sailors  sent  to  sea 49 

Died  before  term  of  probation  expired 3 

Did  not  improve  and   were  surrendered   for  sen- 
tence   5- 

Ran  away 12 

Total 1,056 

Of  these,  880  would  have  been  imprisoned,  except 
for  the  provisions  of  this  law,  and  the  minimum  time  of 
imprisonment  in  all  these  cases  put  together  would 
have  amounted  to  2,334  months,  or  nearly  200  years, 
which  was  practically  saved  to  both  the  persons  arrested 
and  to  society,  for,  had  the  accused  been  imprisoned, 
they  would  probably  not  have  earned  anything  for 
themselves  or  for  society.  Besides,  there  was  saved  to 
the  public  $22,978  in  prison  expenses. 

The  offenses  charged  ranged  from  forgery  to  va- 
grancy. Under  the  head  of  work  done  by  agent,  appears 
the  following: 

Visits  to  homes  of  persons  on  probation 1,061 

Visits  at  office  by  persons  on  probation 1,467 

Reports  from  persons  sent  to  country  homes 337 

Reports  from  persons  sent  to  private  charity  homes     20S 

Investigations  for  persons  charged  with  crime 3,673 

Places  of  employment  secured  for  persons  on  pro- 
bation        64 

Temperance  pledges  taken   by  persons  on   proba- 
tion     557 


226     OUR  PENAL  MACHIXERV AXr-  ITS  VICTIMS. 


Investigations    on    applications    for    release   from 

prison 53 

(In  reference  to  the  last  item,  it  should  be  stated  that 
this  law  provides  that  persons  already  imprisoned,  may, 
under  certain  conditions,  be  released.)  A  summary  of 
the  ten  years'  experience  is  also  given  as  follows: 


Whole  number  tak- 
en on  probation. 

Did  well  and  were 
discharged    , 

Proved  incorrigible 


1879 

1880 

1881 

1882 

1883 

1884 

1885 

1886 

1887 

430 

376 

41S 

549 

788 

846 

797 

852 

827 

375 
55 

335 
41 

377 
41 

489 
60 

71S 
70 

757 
89 

742 

55 

790 
62 

784 
43 

1056 
992 

64 


The  report  also  shows  that,  had  there  been  no  pro- 
bation, all  those  that  were  saved  must  have  been  sen- 
tenced and  imprisoned,  and  their  sentences  during  the 
ten  years,  when  put  together,  would  have  amounted  to 
1,715  years  and  ten  months,  or  an  average  of  171  years 
and  seven  months  of  time  each  year,  all  this  having 
been  saved  to  the  accused  and  their  families,  as  well  as 
to  society;  for  in  prison  their  time  would  have  been 
substantially  a  dead  loss,  while  the  extra  prison  expense 
to  the  public  during  the  ten  years  would  have  been 
$210,856.  But  all  this  sinks  into  insignificance  when 
compared  with  the  loss  which  would  have  followed 
when  the  imprisonment  was  over.  For  in  most  cases 
the  discharged  convict  would  have  been  unable  to  make 
a  living;  in  fact,  he  would  have  been  a  ruined  man  or 
boy,  who  would  never  do  much  for  himself  or  for  soci- 
ety, but  in  many  cases  would  be  almost  forced  into  a 
criminal  career  to  prey  upon  society. 


REMEDY.  227 

I  have  thus  far  given  only  the  results  in  one  proba- 
tion district,  but  the  results  in  other  districts  in  and 
about  Boston  were  of  the  same  gratifying  character. 
Mr.  George  N.  Parker,  the  ofificer  for  the  South  Boston 
district,  summarizes  his  report  as  follows:  "About  93 
per  cent,  of  the  persons  placed  under  my  care  have 
done  well  and  have  been  discharged.  On  account  of 
their  poverty  all  would  have  had  to  go  to  prison  had 
they  been  sentenced  on  the  day  of  trial.  But,  as  proba- 
tion was  intervened,  many  of  them  have  since  lived 
good,  orderly  lives;  have  been  a  blessing  to  their  fami- 
lies; have  kept  their  homes  from  being  broken  up  and 
their  children  sent  to  charitable  institutions.  So  that 
the  workings  of  probation  have  in  many  cases  been  two- 
fold, viz. :  Reformed  the  parents  and  saved  the  children." 

In  his  report  for  1889,  Mr.  Savage  says:  "  In  the 
1,125  cases  disposed  of  during  the  year,  1,065,  or  94  per 
cent.,  were  accredited  with  doing  well,  while  60,  or  less 
than  6  per  cent.,  proved  incorrigible.  *  *  *  Qf  ^{^g 
315  persons  sent  home,  a  majority  were  strangers  in  the 
city — had  been  convicted  of  some  minor  offense  and 
were  without  means.  They  were  sent  home  to  save 
them  from  prison.  Among  them  were  49  young  women 
convicted  the  first  time,  and  were  sent  to  parents  or  rel- 
atives to  save  them  not  only  from  prison,  but  a  probable 
life  of  infamy.  *  =5*  *  Probation,  by  securing  oppor- 
tunity for  hundreds  of  unfortunate  specimens  of  human 
frailty,  who  show  an  honest  desire  to  reform;  by  restor- 
ing to  destitute  and  suffering  families  those  on  whom 
they  were  dependent  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  by 
aiding  to  stay  the  increase  of  the  criminal  classes — ren- 


228      OUR  PENAL  MACJIhWERV AXD  ITS  VICTIMS. 

ders  a  service  that  outweighs  any  pecuniary  considera- 
tion." 

Mr.  VVm.  F.  Reed,  probation  officer  for  the  Roxbury 
district,  closes  liis  report  for  the  year  1888  as  follows: 
"Probation  has  saved  /iiaiiy  of  both  sexes  from  exposure, 
shame  and  loss  of  situation,  in  cases  where  they  had  committed 
their  first  offense,  and  not  only  saved  them  for  the  time  being, 
but  for  all  tiniest  I  will  simply  add  to  the  above  that  I 
am  informed  that  boys  and  young  women  have  almost 
entirely  disappeared  from  the  prisons  of  Massachusetts. 

The  Method  of  Procedure  is  simply  to  continue  a 
case  for  three  months,  and  then  to  continue  it  again  as 
often  as  may  be  deemed  necessary.  If  the  accused  does 
well,  he  is  finally  discharged.  If  he  does  not  do  well,  he 
can  be  sentenced  at  any  time. 

Few  Run  Away. — It  is  a  most  remarkable  circum- 
s»tance  that  so  few  run  away.  Thus,  out  of  1,056  placed 
on  probation  in  one  district  in  one  year,  only  12  ran 
away,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  average  of  runaways  is 
scarcely  one  and  one-half  per  cent. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES. 

The  idea  of  having  the  maximum  length  of  confine- 
ment fixed  by  law,  and  then  sentencing  offenders  gener- 
ally and  letting  their  actual  confinement  be  determined 
by  certain  conditions,  though  comparatively  new,  is 
meeting  with  general  approval  by  men  who  have  given 
this  subject  much  thought.  W.  D.  Patterson,  superin- 
tendent of  the  Cleveland  House  of  Correction,  in  his 
report  for  the  year  1881,  says  on  this  point: 

"  It  is  worse  than  folly  to  attempt  or  expect  the 
reformation  of  such  old-time  chronic  offenders  as  fre- 
quent our  police  courts  every  week  or  every  month 
when  they  are  out  of  confinement,  by  the  infliction  of 
such  penalties  as  an  imprisonment  of  five,  ten  or  thirty 
days,  or  by  the  imposition  of  a  fine  and  costs.  The 
object  sought  to  be  accomplished  by  such  a  course, 
however  good  the  intention  of  the  law,  or  however  cor- 
rect the  motives  of  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  enforce  the 
same,  must  end  in  an  expensive  failure,  and  the  offend- 
ers continue  in  their  degradation  and  debauchery  and 
bestial  inebriety,  notwithstanding  the  law  and  the 
courts  and  the  prison.  Instead,  as  now,  let  them  be 
committed  as  children  are  to  the  House  of  Refuge,  or 
as  prisoners  are  now  committed  to  the  New  York  State 
Reformatory  at  Elmira,  until  their  reformation  is  accom- 
plished.    An  imprisonment  in  such  cases  as  the  above 

229 


230     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

would  not  only  be  wise  and  beneficial  to  the  offenders, 
but  would  be  of  especial  advantage  to  the  community 
financially." 

In  the  report  of  the  committee  on  prisons,  made  in 
1881,  to  the  Legislature  of  California,  with  some  reflec- 
tion on  prison  discipline  and  management,  the  question 
of  "indeterminate  sentences  "  is  thus  discussed: 

"By  indeterminate  sentences  is  meant  that  all  per- 
sons in  a  State  who  are  convicted  of  crimes  or  offenses 
before  a  competent  court,  shall  be  deemed  wards  of  the 
State,  and  shall  be  committed  to  a  Board  of  Guardians, 
until,  in  their  judgment,  they  may  be  returned  to  society 
with  ordinary  safety,  and  in  accord  with  their  own  high- 
est welfare.  If  this  principle  be  adopted,  the  confine- 
ment of  a  prisoner  will  depend  upon  his  own  exertions 
to  earn  promotion  and  eventual  freedom.  The  duration 
of  confinement  is  placed  under  the  control,  and  is  deter- 
mined by  the  conduct,  of  the  convict  himself.  The 
advantages  of  an  indeterminate  sentence  are: 

"  I.   It  supplants  the  law  of  force  by  the  law  of  love. 

"2.  It  secures  certainty  of  restraint  and  continued 
treatment,  which  operate  to  prevent  crime,  as  severity 
does  not. 

"3.  It  makes  possible  the  arrest  and  right  training 
of  that  whole  brood  of  beginners,  before  great  depravity 
is  reached,  and  character  is  irretrievably  fixed. 

"  4.  It  utilizes  for  reformatory  ends  the  motive  that 
is  always  the  strongest — the  desire  to  be  released,  the 
love  of  liberty. 

"5.  It  removes  the  occasion,  and  so  mollifies  the 
feeling  of  animosity  usually  felt  toward  the  law  and  its 


INDETERMINATE  SENTEATES.  231 

officers,  puts  the  personal  interest  of  the  prisoner  plainly 
in  obedience  to  the  rules  of  discipline,  and  leads  him  to 
co-operate  with  those  laboring  for  his  welfare." 

Again,  under  the  head  of  "classifications,"  the  report 
continues: 

"  It  is  self-evident  that  the  young  offender  should  be 
disassociated  from  the  old  criminal;  that  the  person  who 
has  committed  the  first  offense,  perhaps  venial,  should 
be  separated  from  the  hardened  villain;  that  the  com- 
paratively innocent  should  not  be  associated  with  the 
pronounced  guilty.  The  real  classification  is  one  based 
on  character,  conduct  and  merit,  as  shown  in  the  daily 
routine  of  prison  life." 

In  the  report  of  the  special  commission  of  the  State 
of  Connecticut  on  contract  convict  labor,  with  accom- 
panying papers,  1880,  the  Reformatory  at  Elmira,  N.  Y., 
is  thus  commented  upon: 

"  There  are  several  peculiarities  about  this  prison, 
which,  so  far  as  your  committee  is  aware,  are  not  found 
at  any  other  in  this  country,  and  which  tend  largely  to 
its  success.  It  is  strictly  a  reformatory,  and  as  such  is 
graded  into  three  classes.  No  prisoner  is  received  over 
thirty  years  of  age,  and  all  only  for  the  first  offense. 
Special  laws  have  been  enacted,  all  of  which  are  in  the 
interest  of  reform,  and  to  enable  the  proposers  of  this 
experiment  to  give  the  plan  a  full  and  fair  trial.  The 
prisoners  are  not  sentenced  to  a  definite  fixed  period, 
but  for  a  maximum  term.  Upon  entering  the  prison 
they  are  received  into  the  second  grade,  from  which  they 
are  promoted  to  the  first  for  good  conduct,  or  degraded 
into  the  third  for  bad.     *     *     *     As  a   reformatory,  the 


232      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

prison,  so  far,  is  a  success.  All  the  power  of  hope,  love, 
ambition,  pride  and  shame  is  brought  to  bear  upon  each 
individual;  every  possibility  of  a  speedy  liberation  and 
success  in  the  future  is  held  up  to  the  prisoner — of 
places  of  respect  and  honor  in  society  and  confidence  in 
business,  if  by  well-doing  they  deserve  respect  and  con- 
fidence; or  shame,  poverty  and  a  prison,  if,  by  a  return 
to  criminal  practices,  they  again  forfeit  their  right  to 
liberty.  Such  treatment  can  have  but  one  result. 
Whenever,  in  the  opinion  of  the  superintendent  and 
board  of  managers,  a  prisoner  has  shown,  by  long-con- 
tinued good  conduct,  that  he  is  fit  to  be  trusted  with 
liberty,  he  is  given  a  leave  of  absence,  during  which  time 
he  must  keep  the  superintendent  informed  of  his  where- 
abouts, and  of  his  condition  and  prospects,  until,  after 
a  time  of  trial,  having  proved  his  reformation  by  his  con- 
duct, he  is  given  a  full  discharge.  Out  of  twenty-four 
liberated  on  parole,  twenty-two  earned  their  discharge 
by  showing  their  fitness  for  liberty — one  was  returned 
to  prison  to  serve  out  the  full  length  of  his  sentence, 
and  one  left  the  country.  The  same  motives  which 
induced  these  prisoners  to  strive  for  the  highest  grade, 
also  induce  them  to  do  the  most  and  best  work." 

The  following  extract  is  taken  from  the  message  of 
Governor  Hoyt  to  the  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, January  4,  1881: 

"  What  can  be  done  for  the  very  young,  up  to  the  age 
of  sixteen  years,  who,  by  commitments  by  courts  and 
magistrates,  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  law,  for 
various  offenses,  has  been  well  exemplified  by  the  House 
of  Refuge  in  Philadelphia  and  the  Pennsylvania  Reform 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  233 

School  at  Morganza.  Amid  some  controversy  over  these 
schools,  and  the  methods  at  the  bottom  of  them,  it  is  too 
late  now  to  question  their  value  and  service,  although 
neither  has  as  yet  reached  an  equipment  necessary  for 
the  best  work.  The  purpose  of  their  existence,  and  the 
aim  of  their  managers,  is  to  rescue  their  inmates  from 
the  evil  associations  out  of  which  they  have  come  and  to 
reform  them.  Few  of  these  waifs  have  responsible  parent- 
age or  guardianship.  They  are  quite  sure  to  become 
State  charges.  The  State,  co-operating  with  private 
benefactors,  proposes  to  return  them,  self-supporting,  to 
society,  under  the  best  auspices  the  case  will  admit. 
Within  the  limits  of  the  school  they  are  moulded,  intel- 
lectually and  morally,  by  competent,  careful  teachers, 
and  instructed,  trained,  and  drilled  to  some  trade  or 
industrial  pursuit.  The  effort  is  to  reproduce,  within 
the  enclosure,  the  exact  condition  of  society  they  will 
encounter  when  they  return  to  the  world.  This  requires 
time,  and  the  inmates  are  retained  until  the  work  is  more 
or  less  completely  done.  The  process  goes  upon  the 
correct  and  safe  assumption  that  it  is  impossible  to 
reform  the  conduct  of  a  child  or  man  without  first 
measurably  reforming  his  nature.  The  scheme  is  no 
longer  an  experiment,  as  it  has  been  faithfully  worked  out 
in  England,  France,  Germany  and  many  of  the  States  of 
our  Union.  This  leads  up  to  an  extension  of  the  general 
method,  which,  in  the  judgment  of  political  economists 
of  the  very  highest  authority,  promises  the  most  benefi- 
cial results.  This  will  include  all  the  first  offenders, 
except  of  the  most  brutal  type,  under  the  age  say  of  thirty 
years.    The  purpose  of  the  process  is  also  to  return  them 


234      OUR  PEXAL  MACHIXERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

to  society,  with  the  preparation  and  discipline  best  fitted 
to  enable  them  to  earn  an  honest  livelihood,  permit  them 
to  retain  their  self-respect,  and  fit  them  to  resume  their 
places  among  their  fellow-men,  if  they  so  choose,  with- 
out the  brand  of  infamous  punishment  or  penal  servitude 
upon  them.  The  aim  and  scope  is  to  give  the  convict 
intellectual,  moral  and  industrial  training,  systematic 
habits,  and  definite  purposes,  in  a  reformatory  school, 
and  not  in  a  penitentiary;  to  afford  him  another  chance 
in  life;  in  short,  to  help  him  to  help  himself. 

"  In  the  discretion  of  the  court  rendering  the  sen- 
tence, defendants  convicted  of  a  first  offense  of  such 
magnitude  as  to  justify  adequate  imprisonment,  and 
under  the  age  of  thirty  years,  are  committed  to  such  an 
intermediate  prison.  They  go  without  a  determinate 
sentence,  but  can  not  be  held  for  a  period  longer  than 
the  maximum  term  fixed  by  law  for  the  offense.  Under 
a  proper  system  of  grades  and  classes  and  marks,  every 
motive  to  shorten  the  period  of  detention  is  presented. 
That  period  will  lie  in  the  discretion  of  the  proper  offi- 
cers of  the  institution.  Positions  in  life  are  found  for 
them,  and  they  may  then  be  conditionally  discharged 
on  parole,  reporting  from  time  to  time  thereafter  their 
behavior  and  surroundings;  or,  in  default  thereof,  or  of 
good  conduct  for  a  prescribed  period,  they  may  be  lia- 
ble to  be  returned  to  the  institution.  It  has  been  found 
by  experience  that  the  prisoners  thus  discharged  have 
been  well  received  again  by  society,  and  in  one  of  the 
largest  institutions  of  this  kind  in  our  land,  it  is  officially 
reported  that  less  than  seven  per  cent,  of  the  number 
discharged  have  failed  to  maintain  their  promise  of  good 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  235 

conduct.  I  refer  to  the  Reformatory  at  Elmira,  New 
York.  The  acts  creating  it,  and  the  practical  manage- 
ment there  carried  out,  are  worthy  of  attention  and 
study." 

In  accordance  with  Governor  Hoyt's  recommenda- 
tion, a  committee,  composed  of  members  of  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Represenatives,  visited  Elmira,  made  a 
thorough  inspection  of  the  practice  pursued  at  the  Re- 
formatory, and  subsequently  submitted  a  report,  unani- 
,  mously  advising  the  erection,  in  the  State  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, of  buildings  in  conformity  with  the  principles 
there  in  operation. 

A  commission  from  the  State  of  New  Jersey  also  in- 
spected the  Reformatory  at  Elmira,  and  made  a  like 
recommendation  to  the  legislature  of  that  common- 
wealth. 

The  "  Tenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioners 
of  Prisons  of  Massachusetts,"  January,  1881,  devotes 
considerable  space  to  the  consideration  of  "Indetermin- 
ate Sentences,"  in  the  following  language: 

"Whatever  plan  may  be  adopted  to  afford  the  best 
opportunities  for  accomplishing  the  reformation  of  crim- 
inals, the  highest  results  can  never  be  attained  while  the 
present  system  of  imposing  definite  sentences  for  crime 
is  in  force.  This  was  long  ago  recognized  as  true  in  the 
treatment  of  young  offenders,  and  for  many  years  chil- 
dren have  been  sentenced  to  the  reform  schools  for  their 
minority,  no  time-sentences  being  imposed,  the  power 
to  release  them  when  they  are  deemed  to  be  reformed 
being  given  to  the  authorities  in  charge  of  the  schools. 

"There  are  many  reasons  for  applying  the  same  prin- 


2^6     Oi'/y   PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

cipie  in  the  treatment  of  adult  criminals.  The  present 
system  holds  out  no  inducement  to  the  convict  to  re- 
form. His  sentence  is  a  fixed  one,  and  expires  on  a  day 
certain,  regardless  of  his  conduct  or  of  his  character. 
The  one  thing  he  keeps  more  constantly  in  mind  than 
any  other  is  the  day  of  his  release.  He  knows  that 
this  will  not  be  much  delayed  by  anything  he  may  do, 
and  can  not  be  materially  hastened  by  good  behavior 
or  by  any  change  of  character.  He  learns  to  look  upon 
his  punishment  as  wholly  retributive;  and,  when  he 
comes  out  of  the  prison,  he  feels  that  he  has 'wiped 
out'  the  record  against  him,  and  is  to  begin  again. 
During  his  trial,  his  main  effort,  and  that  of  his  coun- 
sel, is  to  secure  as  light  a  sentence  as  is  possible,  and 
often,  with  no  conception  of  the  gravity  of  his  offense, 
he  harbors  a  spite  against  the  government  for  punish- 
ing him  too  severely. 

"  It  maybe  necessary  to  continue  for  the  present  this 
sj'Stem  for  most  offenders,  as  a  change  from  fixed  sen 
tences  to  indefinite  ones  involves  a  change  in  the  whole 
system  of  prison  management  and  discipline.  But  for  an 
institution  whose  first  aim  is  the  reformation  of  crimi- 
nals, indefinite  sentences  must  eventually  prevail. 
Under  such  a  system,  a  convict  would  be  confined  until 
he  was  deemed  to  be  reformed,  be  it  a  short  or  long 
time.  This  throws  around  the  prisoner  every  possible 
inducement  for  self-improvement.  He  realizes  that  his 
future  is  in  his  own  hands.  He  sees  that  the  State  is  not 
punishing  him  arbitrarily  for  his  crimes,  but  is  interested 
in  his  welfare;  that  he  is  deprived  of  his  liberty  not  so 
much  on  account  of  his  acts  as  on   account  of   his  char- 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  237 

acter;  and  that  his  right  to  freedom  is  dependent  upon 
his  reformation,  which  in  turn  depends  upon  his  own 
use  of  his  opportunities. 

"  With  such  a  view  of  his  offenses,  of  the  results  they 
have  brought,  and  of  the  way  of  obtaining  his  liberty,  he 
has  every  inducement  to  do  his  best.  Some,  with  their 
future  thus  in  their  own  hands,  will  speedily  change 
their  habit  of  life,  and  make  resolute  endeavors  to  build 
up  better  characters,  and  can  soon  be  released.  Others 
will  come  to  such  endeavors  very  slowly,  and  some,  pos- 
sibly, not  at  all.  Some  of  those  who  begin  the  struggle 
will  fail;  but,  as  a  rule,  they  will  try  again  and  again, 
until  they  attain  some  degree  of  success. 

"  In  determining  when  a  convict  has  reformed,  a 
great  responsibility  rests  upon  those  who  have  his  train- 
ing in  charge.  They  will  sometimes  be  deceived;  and 
sometimes  one  who  has  within  the  prison  really  reformed, 
will  fall  under  temptations  in  a  life  of  freedom,  and 
return  to  a  criminal  life.  But  this  is  equally  true  of 
other  wards  of  the  State.  A  large  percentage  of  those 
discharged  from  our  asylums  for  the  insane,  as  cured, 
return  again  for  treatment;  the  physicians  having  been 
mistaken  in  regard  to  the  cure,  or  having  over-estimated 
its  permanency  when  the  patient  came  in  contact  with 
the  world.  But  these  mistakes  would  not  lead  any  one 
to  suggest  a  fixed  term  of  confinement  for  the  insane 
with  a  discharge  at  its  end,  regardless  of  the  condition 
of  the  person. 

"  If  an  indefinite  sentence,  to  be  ended  only  by  his 
own  reformation,  be  deemed  too  severe,  the  indeter- 
minate sentence  now  imposed  in  New  York  upon  those 


238     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

who  are  sent  to  the  State  Reformatory  at  Elmira,  ought 
certainly  to  be  tried.  A  convict  is  there  sentenced  to 
the  reformatory  for  the  longest  period  for  which  he 
could  possibly  be  sentenced  for  his  offense.  For  instance, 
under  our  criminal  code,  a  person  may  be  sentenced  to 
the  State  prison  for  five  years  for  larceny  from  the  per- 
son, or  he  may  be  sent  to  jail  for  a  lesser  term.  Under 
the  New  York  statutes,  a  person  sent  to  the  reformatory 
for  this  offense  would  merely  be  sentenced  to  that  institu- 
tion, and  regardless  of  the  amount  stolen,  or  of  the  cir- 
cumstances, he  could  be  held  for  five  years,  unless  sooner 
reformed.  In  the  reformatory  he  is  subjected  to  the 
closest  surveillance  and  the  most  careful  training.  He 
wins  his  release  by  his  deportment  and  by  his  character. 
Whenever  he  is  thought  to  be  reformed,  he  may  be 
released  upon  parole.  He  continues  under  the  control  of 
the  Board  of  Managers  until  the  expiration  of  five  years, 
unless  they  sooner  discharge  him,  precisely  as  minors 
released  from  the  reform  schools  in  this  State  do.  He 
may  be  returned  to  the  reformatory  for  misbehavior  at 
any  time  during  his  sentence. 

"  It  will  be  seen  that  this  plan  holds  out  to  the  convict 
the  strongest  possible  inducements  for  reformation, 
both  in  confinement  and  after  release.  If  anything  in 
the  way  of  legislation  will  secure  a  change  of  life,  this 
will;  for  it  takes  advantage  of  every  motive  which 
usually  moves  a  rational  being,  and  makes  full  use  of 
the  means  which  are  most  likely  to  change  a  criminal 
into  a  good  citizen.  The  system  has  produced  excellent 
results  in  the  Elmira  reformatory;  and  we  recommend 
that  it  be  adopted  in  sentences  to  the  reformatory  prison 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  239 

for  women,  and  to  the  reformatory  for  men^  which  we 
have  suggested,  if  it  shall  be  thought  wise  to  send  a 
part  of  the  prisoners  to  it  directly  from  the  courts, 
instead  of  transferring  them  from   the  county  prisons." 

In  the  report  from  the  Joint  Committee  of  the  Senate 
and  Assembly,  appointed  to  investigate  the  affairs  of 
the  New  York  State  Reformatory,  submitted  April  27, 
1 881,  to  the  questions,  "Is  the  reformatory  doing  the 
work  for  which  it  was  intended  ?  Is  it  reforming  young 
men?   Is  it  a  success  ? "  the  following  reply  was  presented : 

"We  take  pleasure  in  commending  the  management 
for  the  excellent  condition  in  which  the  buildings  and 
grounds  are  being  maintained,  and  for  the  skill,  thor- 
oughness and  efficiency  with  which  the  work  of  reform- 
ing and  reclaiming  the  inmates  is  being  carried  on.  The 
prisoners  are  all  young  men,  between  sixteen  and  thirty 
years  of  age  when  sentenced  and  convicted  of  their  first 
offense.  The  prison  was  suggested,  planned,  ind  is 
erected  and  operated,  with  a  view  to  the  reformation  of 
this  class  of  offenders.  We  are  convinced  that  its  object 
is  being  attained  to  a  greater  degree  than  its  best 
friends  anticipated.  The  structure  has  cost  nearly,  or 
quite,  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  but  the  State  has 
something  to  show  for  its  money.  The  buildings  are 
large  and  substantial,  well  lighted  and  ventilated,  and 
models  of  cleanliness  and  good  order.  The  500  cells 
are  of  good  size  and  comfortable,  each  being  furnished 
with  a  bed,  a  chair,  a  small  cupboard  or  bookcase,  and 
a  crude  writing-desk;  and  each  is  lighted  with  gas. 
The  food  supplied  to  prisoners  appears  to  be  plentiful 
and  wholesome,  and  the  clothing  is  all  that  is  required. 


24©     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

Books  and  writing  materials  are  supplied  as  needed. 
In  the  arrangement  of  the  buildings,  as  well  as  in  the 
management  of  the  prison,  every  thing  compatible  with 
reformatory  discipline  seems  to  have  been  done  with  a 
view  to  the  comfort  of  those  who  are  so  unfortunate  as 
to  be  incarcerated  within  its  walls.  The  prisoners  are 
kept  hard  at  work  throughout  the  day,  and  attend 
school  during  three  alternate  evenings  of  each  week; 
the  intervening  evenings  being  occupied  in  study.  It 
was  the  privilege  of  the  committee  to  attend  the  schools, 
which  we  found  in  the  hands  of  competent  instructors. 
The  work  bore  every  evidence  of  substance  and  thor- 
oughness, while  the  advanced  studies  taught,  and  the 
brightness  and  proficiency  of  the  pupils,  quite  surprised 
us. 

"As  is  well  known  to  the  legislature,  if  not  to  the 
people,  the  inmates  of  the  reformatory  are  sentenced  to 
the  institution  for  an  indefinite  period  of  time,  the  law 
only  providing  that  they  shall  not  be  imprisoned  for  a 
longer  period  than  already  authorized  by  law  in  a  State 
prison  or  penitentiary  for  a  like  offense.  Aside  from 
this  provision,  the  time  of  their  imprisonment  depends 
upon  their  industry,  good  conduct,  and  proficiency  in 
studies.  They  are  made  to  understand  that  they  can 
regain  a  place  in  society  by  deserving  it.  The  pride, 
self-respect  and  ambition  of  the  inmates  is  encouraged 
and  stimulated  by  a  system  of  marks  most  skillfully 
arranged,  which  results  in  classifying  them  into  different 
grades,  thus  entitling  them,  as  they  advance,  to  enlarged 
privileges,  greater  confidence,  and  better  and  more 
attractive  clothing,  and,  finally,  to  release  upon  parole. 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  241 

The  committee  were  struck  with  the  frankness,  cheerfulness, 
and  manly  conduct  of  the  inmates,  and  the  entire  absence  of 
that  sullen  and  dogged  indifference  and  abandomtient  so  univer- 
sal in  prison  life. 

"In  general,  we  have  none  but  words  of  commenda- 
tion for  the  reformatory  work  of  the  State  reformatory. 
The  experiment  is  being  proved  a  success.  Young  men 
who  have  fallen  into  bad  ways  are  being  saved  to  homes, 
friends  and  society,  instead  of  being  crushed  in  spirit 
and  prepared  for  deeper  shame  and  greater  crimes. 
The  principle  upon  which  the  reformatory  is  conducted 
should,  in  our  judgment,  be  persevered  in,  developed, 
and  extended  into  the  other  penal  institutions  of  the 
State." 

In  1881,  Mr.  Langmuir,  inspector  of  prisons  in  Can- 
ada, in  company  with  a  number  of  Canadian  officials, 
visited  the  prisons  in  several  of  the  States  of  the  Union, 
and,  on  his  return,  in  an  interview  published  in  the 
Toronto  Globe,  gave  his  opinion  of  the  system  in  vogue 
at  Elmira,  as  follows: 

"  ^.  Did  you  see  any  new  methods  which  might  be 
introduced  here  in  whole  or  in  part? 

"■A.  Yes,  we  did.  At  the  New  York  State  Reform- 
atory for  adult  males,  at  Elmira,  I  found  certain  features 
of  prison  management  decidedly  in  advance  of  our 
views.  The  system  has  been  in  operation  five  years. 
The  building  is  a  fine  one,  and  is  furnished  throughout 
with  all  the  modern  conveniences  of  prisons.  Instead 
of  the  prisoners  being  associated  together,  as  they  are, 
without  regard  to  the  differences  in  their  character  and 
conduct,  there  are  four  large  dormitories  which  provide 


242     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

sleeping  room  for  four  different  classes  of  prisoners. 
The  distinction  made  is  not  on  account  of  the  offense 
for  which  they  were  committed,  or  the  length  of  the 
term  of  imprisonment  to  which  they  are  liable.  There 
are  three  grades,  and  entrance  to  the  higher  of  these 
depends  entirely  on  the  conduct  of  the  prisoner  while  in 
prison.  Offenders  sent  to  this  prison  are  not  sentenced 
for  definite  periods,  as  with  us.  The  State  law  providesja 
maximum  period  of  confinement  for  the  different  classes 
of  crimes,  and  no  minimum.  This  applies  only  to  the  El- 
mira  prison.  What  the  real  duration  of  the  sentence  shall 
be,  depends  on  the  prisoner.  All  enter  in  the  same  grade, 
and  their  conduct  is  observed  carefully  from  the  very  first, 
and  marks  of  merit  and  demerit  are  given.  By  good  con- 
duct a  prisoner  may  earn  promotion  to  the  first  grade, 
which  has  certain  privileges  attaching  to  it.  Here  good 
conduct  still  further  promotes  the  interest  of  the  prisoner, 
and  if  the  signs  of  reformation  which  led  to  his  promotion 
from  the  second  grade  are  still  manifest,  the  superintend- 
ent and  prison  managers  may  release  him  on  a  probation, 
which  generally  lasts  six  months.  The  friends  of  the 
prisoner  are  corresponded  with,  and  their  wishes  con- 
sulted. Arrangements  are  also  made  with  farmers  and 
others  in  apart  of  the  State  where  the  prisoner  is  not 
known,  and  there  he  is  sent  to  earn  his  living.  Great  care 
is  exercised  in  securing  respectable  employers,  who,  of 
course, are  confidentially  informed  of  all  the  antecedents 
of  the  prisoner.  The  employer  makes  a  report  at  the 
end  of  the  time,  on  the  probationer's  conduct  and  sin- 
cerity in  his  efforts  for  reformation.  The  prisoner  also 
reports  every  month.     A  comparison  is    made    between 


INDETERNMIATE  SENTENCES.  243 

these  reports,  and  the  superintendent  and  board  of  man- 
agers may  then  decide  on  an  unconditional  discharge. 
In  this  way  a  prisoner  is  encouraged  to   reform,   by  the    * 
prospect  of  shortening  his    term    of  prison   life,   which 
may  in  some  cases  last  ten  years,  to  five  or  six  years,  or 
even  to  two  or  three.     Good  conduct  ensuresconfidence 
and  promotion.     Some  of  the  prisoners  are  even  employed 
as  monitors,  and  some  are  entrustedwith  the  keys  to  vari- 
ous apartments.     *     *     *     I  never  saw  a  prison  in  which 
the  inmates  had  less  of  a  convict  expression.  They  were 
cheerful,  and  wore  an  expression  of  opennessand  candor 
I  have  never  seen  in  any  other  penal    institution.       The 
great  encouragement  given  to  right  conduct  has  a  very 
salutary    effect,    both    in    securing   good    conduct   and 
encouraging  good  habits  and  desires.     A  prisoner   told 
me  that  he  could  scarcely  sleep  at   night,  thinking  what 
he  could  do  the  next  day  to  merit  a  good  mark.     There 
are  other  excellent  features  associated  with  the  system. 
The  superintendent,  instead  of  addressing  the  prisoners 
as  a  mass,   must  become    personally  familiar  with    the 
disposition  and  conduct  of  each  man.     He    is    brought 
into  contact  with  each,  and  this  contact  has  the  effect  of 
individualizing  the  prisoner.     Of  course,    no    pains  are 
spared  to  make  each  man,  while  retaining  his  manliness, 
submit    his    will    to    subordination."      I    have  cited    at 
length  from  the  reports  relating  to  the  Elmira  Reform- 
atory— not  for  the  purpose  of  praising  it,  however  excel- 
lent it  may  be — but  to   show  the   opinion    our   leading 
public  men,  who  have  examined  the   subject,   entertain 
in  regard  to  indeterminate  sentences. 

Sir  Frederick  Hill,  who  obtained  great  reputation  in 


244     OUR  PENAL  MACinXllRY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

the  successful  management  of  Scottish  prisons,  said  that 
the  chief  reliance  of  a  prisoner  is  on  hope.  "  Tliis,"  he 
says,  "secures  tlie  hearty  co-operation  of  the  prisoners, 
without  which  there  can  be  little  expectation  of  real 
reform.  I  set  a  high  value  on  the  arrangement  in  con- 
vict prisons  by  which  it  is  granted  to  a  prisoner,  by 
great  self-control,  industry,  and  exertion  for  moral 
improvement,  to  materially  abridge  the  length  of  his  con- 
finement." 

Dr.  Despine,  an  eminent  physician  and  pliilosopher 
of  France,  made  a  profound  study  of  tlie  criminal  from 
the  standpoint  of  psychology,  and,  after  showing  that 
criminals  are,  as  a  rule,  morally  weak  and  in  an  abnormal 
state,  says: 

"  If  these  men  who  are  the  subjects  of  a  real  moral 
idiocy  are  dangerous,  they  are,  at  the  same  time,  deserv- 
ing of  our  pity.  To  shield  ourselves  from  danger  we 
have  to  separate  them  from  society.  This  is  in  itself  a 
punishment.  But  the  treatment  which  aims  only  to 
punish,  is  dangerous  both  to  society  and  the  criminal. 
It  rarely  improves  the  latter,  but  often  makes  him 
worse.  In  France  it  produces  from  forty  to  forty-five 
per  cent,  of  repeaters.  This  is  because,  having  taken  as 
our  guides  only  fear  and  vengeance,  and  not  scientific 
data,  we  have  never  studied  the  moral  state  which  leads 
a  man  to  crime;  we  have  ignored  this  abnormal  con- 
dition. If  the  criminal  is  different,  in  a  moral  point, 
from  other  men,  the  best  way  to  prevent  crime  is 
to  cause  this  difference  to  cease — not  wholly,  which 
is  impossible,  but  near  enough  to  render  him  a 
safe  member  of  society.     In  this  view,  it  is  the  first  duty 


INDETERMINATE  SENTENCES.  245 

to  segregate   them,    not,    however,    for  a  fixed    period 
determined  in  advance  by  the  nature  of  the   crime  com 
mitted.     It  is  rather  the  moral  state  of  the  criminal  that 
is  to  be  taken  into  account. 

"  Here  we  have  the  first  point  in  reference  to  the 
treatment  of  criminals,  that  of  the  time  of  sequestration 
established  by  science,  which  is  thoroughly  in  accord 
with  what  is  demanded  by  common-sense.  Under  the 
system  which  fixes  the  time  in  advance,  we  see  daily  set 
loose  in  society  a  multitude  of  malefactors  who  are 
known  to  be  dangerous.  Does  not  such  a  mode  of 
action  wear  absurdity  on  its  face.'* 

"In  taking,  as  a  starting-point,  the  principle  that  we 
have  here  to  deal  with  persons  afflicted  with  a  moral  anom- 
aly in  the  nature  of  a  disease,  it  is  evident  that  to  cure, 
or,  at  least  lessen  this  malady,  should  be  the  supreme  aim 
in  their  treatment.  It  is  to  this  end  that  all  the  means 
employed  ought  to  converge.  Further,  as  the  moral 
anomaly  with  which  criminals  are  attacked  varies  almost 
indefinitely,  it  is  as  irrational  to  treat  all  these  varieties 
in  the  same  manner  as  it  would  be  to  treat  all  the  ail- 
ments of  the  body  alike." 

To  what  is  said  above  about  indeterminate  sentences,  I 
will  add  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  convict  should  be  required 
to  earn  some  money  for  himself,  as  explained  hereafter, 
before  he  is  permitted  to  leave  the  prison,  in  order  that 
he  may  not  be  absolutely  dependent,  should  he  fail  in 
either  getting  or  keeping  work. 

For,  granting  that  he  has  completely  reformed,  and  is 
anxious  to  lead  an  honorable  life,  he  is  then  still  no  better,  nor 
can  he  possibly  be  morally  stronger,  than  the  honest  man  who 


246     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

never  was  in  prison;  and  even  such  a  man  liwuld  be  in  great 
danger  of  becoming  a  criminal  should  he  suddenly  be  left  with- 
out money^  without  work,  without  friends,  tvith  nothijig  to  eat, 
and  noiuhere  to  go  when  night  comes. 

So  long  as  a  man  is  able  to  pay  his  way,  he  preserves 
his  self-respect  and  is  comparatively  free  from  danger. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

GRAND    JURIES. 

Grand  juries  should  be  abolished.  They  work  a  great 
injury  to  the  innocent,  and  greatly  assist  the  guilty. 
For,  the  delays  incident  to  the  action  of  the  grand  jury 
keep  hundreds  in  jail,  who  are,  on  examination,  dis- 
charged. At  the  same  time,  the  great  delay  incidental 
to  their  action  is  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  the  real 
criminals.  They  thus  gain  time,  frequently  many 
months,  till  the  public  has  lost  interest  in  their  case, 
and  further  delays  have  become  easy  to  procure. 

At  present,  there  is  an  examination  before  a  justice 
of  the  peace,  where  a  number  of  continuances  are  gen- 
erally obtained.  Then  the  offender  is  bound  over  to 
await  the  action  of  the  grand  jury,  and,  if  he  can  not 
give  bail,  he  has  to  go  to  jail,  and  the  worst  criminals 
often  are  able  to  give  bail,  while  the  poor,  wrongfully 
arrested,  frequently  are  not.  Owing  to  the  number  of 
cases,  trifling  and  otherwise,  requiring  their  action,  it 
frequently  takes  a  number  of  months  before  the  grand 
jury  reaches  the  case.  Then  the  prosecution  is  required 
again  to  produce  all  its  witnesses.  If  an  indictment  is 
found,  it  again  takes  months  before  it  can  be  reached 
for  trial,  when  the  whole  agony  has  once  more  to  be 
gone  through  with.  Surely,  no  system  better  calcu- 
lated to  defend  criminals  and  injure  the  innocent  could 
well  be  devised. 

347 


248  GRAND  JURIES, 

Courts  should  always  be  open  for  the  trials  of  crimi- 
nals, so  that  a  continuance  would  be  but  for  a  few  days, 
and  not  for  a  number  of  months  to  the  next  term,  as 
now.  Then  the  accused  should  be  tried  on  information, 
so  that  a  trial  could  take  place  immediately  after  the 
offense.  This  would  protect  the  innocent,  and,  at  once, 
bring  to  justice  the  guilty.  The  speedy  trial  is  what  the 
guilty  always  dread. 


Part  Second. 


PRISON   LABOR. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Prison  Labor— Kind  of  Work  Done — Earnings  and 
Cost  of  Prisoners — Loss  to  Society — Innocent 
Suffer  with  Guilty — Reason  of  Low  Average 
— No  Interest  in  Labor  Makes  Poor  Workmen 
— Leaves  Him  in  Helpless  Condition — Indus- 
tries Limited. 

There  are  in  vogue  four  methods  of  working  prison- 
ers: By  the  first  of  these,  called  the  Public  Account 
System,  the  State  furnishes  material,  and  then  sells  the 
goods  made.  By  the  second,  which  is  known  as  the 
Contract  System,  the  services  of  a  specified  number  of 
convicts  are  hired  out  or  contracted  to  one  contractor 
for  a  fixed  time,  and  at  a  fixed  price  per  day,  and  the 
money  thus  made  goes  to  the  State;  by  this  method  the 
State  keeps  control  of  the  prisoners  and  feeds  and 
clothes  them.  The  third  is  the  Piece  Price  System,  by 
which  outsiders  supply  the  material,  and  often  some  of 
the  machinery,  and  the  State  manufactures  the  desired 
articles  at  a  fixed  price  per  piece.  These  three  systems 
are  in  vogue  in  the  Northern  States,  except  Delaware; 
in  that  State  the  prisoners  do  not  work.     By  the  fourth 

*  249 


.-:50       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

method  the  convicts  are  leased  out,  and,  as  they  are 
tlienceforth  clothed  and  fed  by  the  lessee,  they  receive 
from  the  State  scarcely  any  further  attention.  This  sys- 
tem prevails  in  many  of  the  Southern  States,  and  is,  by 
far,  the  most  objectionable  of  all.  Under  it,  there  is 
scarcely  a  possibility  of  the  reformation  of  a  prisoner. 
The  lessee  wants  to  make  as  much  money,  and  give  as 
little  in  return,  as  possible;  and,  in  some  cases,  the  con- 
dition of  the  prisoner  is  said  to  be  far  worse  than  that 
of  the  most  cruelly  treated  slave. 

KIND    OF    WORK    DONE. 

The  work  done  in  prisons  varies.  In  the  Northern 
States  it  is  generally  confined  to  manufacturing;  the 
making  of  boots,  shoes  and  chairs  being  carried  on  to  a 
greater  extent  than  the  making  of  any  other  article, 
though  a  great  many  prisoners  work  at  stone-cutting. 
In  some  of  the  Southern  States  mines  are  worked  and 
plantations  managed  by  prisoners. 

EARNINGS    AND  COST  OF  PRISONERS. 

The  average  earnings  of  prisoners  in  the  best  man- 
aged State  prisons  is  50  cents  per  day  for  every  man 
engaged  in  what  might  be  called  productive  labor, 
skilled  and  unskilled.  The  average  for  all,  including 
those  that  do  prison  duties,  is  about  35  cents  per  day 
per  man.  Thus,  in  the  penitentiary  at  Joliet,  Illinois, 
which,  in  this  respect,  is  one  of  the  best  managed 
in  the  country,  the  average  contract  price,  per  man, 
per  day,  for  year  ending  September  30,  1881,  was 
461",^  cents,  and  for  year  ending  September  30,  1882,  was 


PRISON  LABOR.  251 

52iOT  cents;  and  the  average  earnings,  including  working 
days,  Sundays  and  holidays,  was  33100  cents  and  39*00 
cents,  during  said  years.  It  will  strike  any  one  at  a 
glance  that  this  is  an  exceedingly  low  average;  that  it  is 
^ess  than  half  what  a  man  should  earn  and  less  than  half 
what  a  free  laborer  will  earn  on  an  average. 

But,  notwithstanding  this,  many  prisons  in  which  the 
inmates  labor  are  self-sustaining;  some  require  appro- 
priations by  the  State,  while  some  actually  have  a  sur- 
plus; the  total  average  cost  of  keeping  (including  guard- 
ing, clothing,  etc.)  eacli  convict  in  the  various  peniten- 
tiaries being  from  28  to  35  cents  per  day. 

LOSS  TO  SOCIETY. 

It  will  be  seen,  by  the  above,  that  in  the  case  of  every 
convict  there  is  an  actual  dead  loss  to  society  of  over 
half  of  his  productive  powers.  That  is,  over  half  of 
his  ability  to  support  not  himself  simply,  but  others,  is 
absolutely  lost.  His  time  is  passing,  he  has  so  many 
less  months  or  years  to  live.  But  he  is  contributing  less 
than  half  of  what  he  should  contribute  as  a  free  man. 

Society  is  so  constituted  that  it  requires  every  able- 
bodied  man  to  contribute  a  proportionate  share  toward 
the  support  of  the  whole.  This  he  usually  does  in  sup- 
porting his  family  or  those  depending  on  him.  And 
whenever,  from  any  cause,  he  fails  to  do  this,  there  is  a 
loss  to  society,  and  the  burden  of  the  remainder  is  pro- 
portionately increased.  This  increased  burden  is  felt  in 
various  ways,  and  is  just  as  real  as  though  the  whole  of 
the  loss  had  to  be  collected  in  increased  taxes  every  year. 
In  fact,  to  a  certain  extent  it  is,  for  as  the  number  of  those 


252        OUR  PENAL  MACHIiYERY  AND  ITS  I'lCTIMS. 

paying  taxes  is  diminished,  the  burden  of  the  remainder 
increases,  and  what  is  paid  directly  and  indirectly  for 
charitable  purposes,  to  feed  and  clothe  those  that  are 
dependent  for  support  on  those  confined  in  prison,  might 
as  well  be  paid  in  the  shape  of  taxes.  Further,  in  so  far 
as  those  dependent  on  a  convict  are  more  poorly  cared 
for,  though  not  actually  objects  of  charity,  they  become 
poorer  citizens,  and  are  more  likely  to  be  a  bill  of 
expense  than  a  source  of  assistance  to  society  in  the 
future.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  convict  who  has  abso- 
lutely no  one  depending  on  him,  society  sustains  this 
dead  loss,  for  his  time  is  lost,  his  best  days  are  passing, 
he  is  accumulating  nothing,  he  is  not  equipping  himself 
for  the  struggle  of  life  that  is  before  him;  he  can  not, 
therefore,  after  he  becomes  free,  accomplish  what  he 
otherwise  might  have  done — nay  all  the  chances  are 
against  him,  and  his  life  liable  to  be  a  failure;  thus  society 
will  lose  not  only  his  assistance,  but  will  actually  find  in 
him,  at  some  time  in  the  future,  a  burden. 

INNOCENT    SUFFER    WITH    GUILTY. 

Under  the  present  system,  the  innocent  are  punished 
with  the  guilty.  The  law  intends  that  its  penalties 
shall  fall  only  on  those  that  actually  violate  it;  but,  at 
present,  in  many  cases  the  consequences  of  a  conviction 
fall  with  equal  severity  upon  the  innocent  and  dependent, 
for  it,  in  effect,  takes  away  their  bread.  When,  there- 
fore, a  man  is  convicted,  those  dependent  on  him  are  at 
once  left  without  support,  besides  having  to  bear  the 
terrible  social  blight  which  settles  upon  families  of  con- 
victs,   isolating   them    from   the    rest   of   mankind   and 


pj?/sojv  labor.  253 

making  them  objects  of  aversion,  for  which  it  is  hard  to 
suggest  a  remedy,  and  which  can  not  well  be  avoided. 
But  to  be  deprived  of  the  means  with  which  to  procure 
the  necessaries  of  life  is  an  uncalled-for  hardship;  for 
the  man  is  not  dead,  his  strength  is  not  destroyed,  he  is 
as  able  as  ever  to  work,  and  in  very  many  cases  would 
gladly  work  harder  than  ever  before,  if  thereby  he  could 
do  anything  for  those  he  leaves  behind.  And  why  should 
he  not  be  permitted  to  do  so — nay,  why  should  he  not 
be  actually  required  to  do  so  ?  He  has  violated  the  law, 
it  is  true,  but  his  family  have  not;  he  ought  to  be  pun- 
ished, but  they  ought  not  to  be.  While,  therefore,  he 
must  be  deprived  of  his  liberty,  must  be  isolated  from 
society,  and  bear  the  hardships  of  prison  life,  he  should 
still  be  not  only  permitted,  but  required  to  contribute 
to  the  support  of  those  that  are  absolutely  dependent 
on  him.  True,  the  State  may  require  that  he  first  work 
enough  for  it,  to  pay  the  expense  of  feeding,  clothing, 
guarding,  and  superintending  him;  but  this,  in  most 
penitentiaries,  is  only  from  28  to  32  cents  per  day,  while 
he  is  capable  of  earning,  perhaps,  three  times  as  much. 
Upon  this  subject,  W.  Searles,  Chaplain  of  the  Peniten- 
tiary at  Auburn,  N.  Y.,  in  his  report,  says: 

"An  agreeable  and  profitable  intercourse  with  the 
inmates  of  the  prison,  which  I  enjoy,  arises  out  of  their 
social  correspondence,  which  it  falls  to  my  lot  to  con- 
duct. The  prisoners  are  permitted  to  visit  my  office 
during  the  week  to  obtain  permission  to  write,  or  for 
advice,  or  to  transact  such  necessary  business,  or  ask  for 
such  favors  as  rules  will  permit.  I  read,  record,  and 
direct  all  letters  that  go  out,  and  also  read  all  that  come 


254     OUR  PENAL  M ACIIl \ ERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

in.  This  opens  up  my  way  to  their  most  tender  and 
susceptible  moral  feelings  and  famil}-  sympathies.  The 
letters  received  by  the  prisoners  from  their  almost  bro- 
ken-hearted wives,  mothers,  sisters  and  friends,  enjoin- 
ing upon  them  repentance,  reformation  and  obedience 
to  the  prison  rules,  that  they  may  the  sooner  be  reunited, 
must  have  a  great  influence  upon  them,  both  for  their 
present  and  future  good.  And,  sir,  it  is  the  perusal  of 
these  letters  from  the  poor  old  mother,  the  broken- 
hearted wife,  the  suffering  children,  the  grieving  broth- 
ers and  sisters,  that  enforces  upon  my  mind  the  lesson 
that  no  man  liveth  to  himself  alone.  In  the  vast  major- 
ity of  cases,  these  mothers,  wives  and  children  are  poor, 
and  were  dependent  upon  the  son,  the  husband  and  the 
father  for  the  actual  necessaries  of  life.  In  consequence 
of  his  imprisonment  tJicy  must  suffer.  While  it  is  the 
duty  of  society  to  protect  itself  against  the  inroads  of 
the  criminals,  let  me  inquire,  is  it  not  equally  the  duty 
of  society  to  protect  from  want  and  suffering  the  inno- 
cent wife  and  child?  As  I  have  heretofore  suggested, 
permit  me  again  to  express  the  hope  that  the  incoming 
legislature  will  make  some  provision  by  which  a  portion, 
Jiowtver  small,  of  the  convicfs  earnings,  may  be  set  apart 
for  his  own  or  his familf  s  benefit ^ 

This  system,  therefore,  works  a  great  injustice  to  the 
innocent,  and,  in  the  long  run  entails  a  heavy  burden  on 
society;  for  where  the  family  of  a  convict  is  left  without 
support,  the  burden  of  providing  falls  directly  on 
society.  It  is  immaterial  whether  this  burden  be  dis- 
charged in  taxes  or  in  charity,  or  in  the  loss  of  goods 
stolen;  it  still  comes  from  the  public. 


P/i/SOX  LABOR.  255 

Further  than  this,  the  children  of  a  convict  thus  sit- 
uated, having  no  regular  source  to  look  to  for  bread,  are 
liable  to  grow  up  violators  of  the  law,  from  the  sheer 
force  of  their  surroundings;  for  squalor  and  misery  are 
hot-beds  of  crime. 

So  that,  instead  of  extirpating  crime  by  the  punish- 
ment inflicted,  we  create  anew  the  conditions  out  of 
which  it  grows — that  is,  we  constantly  create  J;he  con- 
ditions that  will  be  certain,  in  due  time,  to  bring  forth 
new  criminals,  with  all  the  expense  to  the  public  that  is 
incident  to  arresting,  prosecuting  and  confining  law- 
breakers. In  fact,  it  would  be  much  cheaper  for  the 
public,  and  certainly  much  better  even  to  charge  the 
convict  nothing  for  guarding,  superintending,  feeding 
and  clothing  him,  than  to  pursue  the  system  now  pur- 
sued; for  the  results  just  described  will,  in  the  end,  cost 
the  public  much  more  than  thirty  cents  per  day.  But 
as  already  stated,  if  given  an  opportunity,  he  could  pay 
the  State  and  contribute  toward  the  support  of  his  fam- 
ily besides;  and  as  thirty  cents  per  day  is  as  little  as  he 
could  be  clothed  and  fed  for  at  home,  he  could  in  reality 
pay  the  State  for  his  keeping  and  contribute  almost  as 
much  to  the  support  of  his  family  as  if  he  were  free.  In 
fact,  in  many  cases  he  could  be  required  to  contribute 
much  more  than  he  would  if  free.  But  I  shall  consider 
this  subject  hereafter. 

REASON    OF    LOW    AVERAGE. 

The  chief  cause  of  the  low  average  earnings  of  con- 
victs lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  unwilling  labor.  A  man 
while  free  will  earn  more  than  double  what  he  will  earn 
as  a  convict. 


256      OUR  PENAL  MACIIIXERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

Of  course,  much  depends  on  the  skill  of  the  foreman 
in  managing  the  prisoners,  and  getting  much  work  out 
of  them.  But  the  chief  reason  of  a  low  average  is 
apparent. 

NO    INTEREST    IN    LABOR   MAKES   POOR    WORKMEN. 

A  convict  has  no  interest  whatever  in  his  work.  It 
does  him-'iio  good  to  do  a  large  amount  of  work  in  a 
day,  for  it  will  benefit  neither  him  nor  any  one  dear  to 
him.  Men  are  generally  impelled  to  work  by  a  desire  to 
benefit  themselves  or  those  dependent  upon  or  dear  to 
them.  But  the  convict  has  none  of  these  incentives. 
He  may  be  anxious  to  earn  and  save  a  pittance,  so 
that  when  he  regains  his  freedom  he  will  be  able  to 
support  himself  for  a  time  even  though  he  fail  to  get 
work.  Or,  he  may  be  eager  to  earn  something  for  the 
assistance  of  those  that  are  without  bread  because  of 
his  acts  and  absence;  but  all  in  vain.  If  he  does  more 
work  than  he  is  required  to  do,  the  profits  go  generally 
into  the  pockets  of  wealthy  contractors,  while  he  is  sim- 
ply wearing  himself  out.  In  short,  he  has  no  heart  in 
his  work.  It  is  involuntary  servitude,  which  rarely  ac- 
complishes more  than  half  what  voluntary  service  will. 

At  present,  the  convict's  work  is  to  him  a  treadmill 
affair,  from  which  he  is  to  get  no  benefit.  He  goes  to 
his  task  because  forced  to  go;  works  only  while  forced 
to  work;  studies  to  slight  his  work  rather  than  to  do  it 
well;  tries  to  get  along  by  doing  as  little  as  possible. 
Indeed,  how  could  it  be  otherwise?  Outside  of  prisons 
men  study  to  do  as  little  as  possible  of  that  in  which  they 
feel  no  interest  and  from  which  they  are  to  get  no  bene- 


PRISON  LABOR.  257 

fit,  and  surely  we  can  not  expect  to  find   more  virtue 
inside  of  prison  than  out. 

The  effect  is,  therefore,  to  make  a  man  a  slow  work- 
man, and  in  many  cases  an  indifferent  and  careless  one; 
and  in  time  these  habits  will  become  natural,  especially 
where  they  are  long  continued.  Therefore,  instead  of 
becoming  an  expert  and  skilled  workman,  he  is  more  apt 
to  become  a  slow  botcher,  and  is,  therefore,  not  well 
equipped  to  make  an  honest  living  when  he  regains  his 
liberty.  And  if  the  effect  of  his  confinement  has  been  to 
make  him  a  poor  workman  instead  of  an  expert,  the 
chances  are  against  his  being  able  to  get  along,  and  the 
probability  is  increased  of  his  drifting,  with  his  family, 
among  the  criminal  classes.  Few  have  any  conception 
of  the  expense  entailed  on  the  public  by  the  relapse  of  a 
convict,  especially  when  the  depredations  committed 
before  he  is  again  incarcerated  are  included.  In  1872 
Mr.  Tallack,  at  the  request  of  the  Howard  Association 
and  of  the  Central  Committee  of  the  International 
Prison  Congress,  collected  a  vast  amount  of  information 
on  the  subject  of  prison  management,  prison  labor,  and 
the  reformation  of  prisoners;  on  this  point  he  says: 
"  Prisoners,  if  discharged  untaught  and  untrained,  soon 
relapse,  and  cost  the  public  ^159  per  annum  (nearly 
$800),  at  a  low  estimate,  by  their  robberies." 

LEAVES    HIM    IN    HELPLESS   CONDITION. 

But  by  far  the  most  serious  defect  in  the  present  sys- 
tem lies  in  the  fact  that  when  a  man  has  spent  years  in 
prison,  on  again  going  out  into  the  world  he  is  abso- 
lutely dependent;  he  has  no  money  and  generally  no 


258       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

friends  who  will  help  him;  he  may  be  anxious  to  work 
and  earn  an  honest  living,  but  often  can  not  get  work. 
Now,  what  is  to  be  expected  in  such  a  case — bearing 
in  mind  that  in  the  first  instance  he  succumbed  to 
evil  influences  and  violated  the  law,  and,  that  a  man 
not  a  convict  and  wuth  friends,  but  who  has  nothing  but 
his  labor  on  which  to  rely,  has  a  very  hard  lot  of  it?  I 
ask  what  can  with  reason  now  be  expected?  .He  is 
under  a  ban.  He  is  an  outcast.  Everybody's  door  is 
shut  against  him.  He  may  be  full  of  good  resolves,  but 
he  can  not  live  on  them.  He  may  again  long  to  be 
respectable  and  independent;  but  he  must  be  housed, 
fed,  clothed,  and  if  work  is  not  to  be  had,  what  can  he 
do? 

Florien  J,  Ries,  one  of  the  most  successful  prison 
managers,  in  his  report  of  the  Milwaukee  House  of  Cor- 
rection for  1880,  in  speaking  of  this  subject,  says: 

"Many,  doubtless,  leave  the  prison  w'ith  a  strong 
determination  to  lead  honorable  lives  in  the  future;  but 
here  the  question  arises,  how  wnll  they  accomplish  this? 
With  all  boasted  philanthropy  and  all  pretended  kindly 
feeling  toward  these  persons,  how  does  society  meet 
them  when  the  prison  door  has  closed  behind  them? 
As  long  as  people  demand  that  prisons  must  be  self-sus- 
taining, these  persons  will  receive  but  a  pittance  upon 
their  discharge.  With  this  they  venture  out  upon  the 
world,  seeking  employment;  and,  if  they  are  frank,  and 
admit  that  they  have  just  been  discharged  from  prison, 
who  will  employ  them?  Without  employment,  v/ithout 
money,  without  friends,  what  are  they  to  do?  Is  it  not 
perfectly  natural,  under  these  circumstances,  that  they 


PRISON  LABOR. 


259 


should  seek  and  find  their  former  associates  in  crime? 
Here,  then,  is  a  wide  field  for  humanitarians,  a  field  in 
which,  perhaps,  the  practical  reformation  of  many  of 
these  persons  could  be  accomplished.  What  can  the 
prison  officials  accomplish  by  assuring  those  prisoners 
that  if  they  will  only  show  the  good  will  to  reform,  soci- 
ety will  receive  them  and  forgive  past  transgressions, 
when,  after  their  actual  discharge,  there  is  no  one  to 
extend  a  helping  hand?  I  believe  that  a  'prisoners'  aid 
society'  could  do  an  incalculable  amount  of  good  in  the 
way  of  advising  and  assisting  such  persons.  This  is  a 
subject  which  should  receive  the  earnest  consideration, 
not  only  of  our  legislature,  but  of  all  true  humanitari- 
ans." 

The  following  forcible  remarks  are  from  the  report 
of  William  H.  Hill,  moral  instructor  of  the  California 
State  Prison.  In  enumerating  the  conditions  necessary 
for  the  reformation  of  prisoners,  he  says: 

"  Second. — The  prisoners  must  desire  and  determine 
to  reform. 

"  Third. — The  officers  in  charge  should  help  in  the 
work  of  reformation. 

"■FourtJi. — Christians  and  philanthropists  in  the  world 
outside  should  also  help,  and  not  by  cold  looks  and 
colder  actions  drive  the  discharged  prisoners  again  into 
crime. 

''  As  to  the  second  element,  there  is  a  great  misappre- 
hension on  the  part  of  the  people  generally.  It  seems 
to  be  taken  for  granted  that  all  who  are  here  deserve 
their  punishment,  and  should  be  kept  from  further  harm 
by  indefinite   imprisonment.     This  is  a  great  mistake. 


26o     Ol^A'  PENAL  MACinXKRY  AiYD  ITS   VICTIMS. 

Some  of  the  inmates  here  are  undoubtedly  innocent, 
having  been  the  victims  of  perjury  or  mistaken  iden- 
tity. These  may  be  few  in  number.  The  great  major- 
ity of  the  prisoners,  however,  are  here  for  the  first  time 
— at  least  three-fourths  of  the  whole  number.  A  mis- 
taken impression  is  abroad  as  to  this.  It  is  not  true,  as 
often  asserted  and  believed,  that  a  large,  or  even  any, 
majority  return  for  the  second,  third  or  fourth  time. 
Not  one-fourth  do  so.  This  would  seem  to  be  proof 
positive  that  the  majority  not  only  resolved  to  lead  a 
different  life  after  release,  but  carried  their  intention 
into  practice.  And  facts  are  always  more  conclusive 
than  fiction. 

"As  to  the  third  requisite,  I  can  bear  testimony  that 
the  officers  do  their  duty,  and  wish  to  help  the  prisoners 
to  do  well,  not  only  in  the  prison,  but  out.  And  if  their 
efforts  were  as  earnestly  seconded  by  outsiders,  there 
would  be  little  necessity  to  ask  any  of  the  above-named 
questions.  And  right  here  is  met  the  greatest  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  reform  of  prisoners;  for  I  must  answer 
the  question  involved  in  the  fourth  position,  by  saying 
that  Christians  and  philanthropists  outside,  though 
plentiful  in  lip  service,  do  not  help  the  prisoners  to 
reform,  but  passively,  if  not  directly,  lend  their  influ- 
ence to  drive  them  back  to  crime  and  punishment.  This 
is  a  bold  charge,  I  know;  but  unfortunately  it  is  true. 
No  matter  how  well  an  inmate  may  conduct  himself 
while  in  prison,  nor  how  sincere  he  may  be  in  his  efforts 
and  determination  to  reform  and  lead  a  better  life,  he 
goes  out  with  the  prison  taint  upon  him.  He  applies 
for  work,  and  honestly  tells  where  he  has   been.     With 


PRISON  LABOR.  .  261 

very  few  exceptions,  he  is  immediately  rebuffed.  In 
vain  does  he  plead  his  reformation  and  determination, 
and  show  his  certificate  of  good  conduct  from  the  prison 
officers.  '  I  pray  thee,  have  me  excused,'  is  what  he 
hears  on  every  side.  Tempters  to  crime  are  neither 
scarce  nor  fastidious;  and  thus  repulsed  by  those  w^ho 
claim,  morally,  to  be  the  better  class,  it  is  not  strange 
if  he  is  again  drawn  aside  from  the  right  path,  and  re- 
turns here  more  hardened  than  ever,  on  account  of  his 
repulse  by  those  from  whom  he  had  a  right  to  expect 
better  things.  That  is  one  obstacle  in  the  way  of  his 
reform. 

"But  suppose,  to  avoid  this,  he  simply  conceals  the 
fact  that  he  has  been  an  inmate  of  the  State  prison. 
He  secures  work  as  a  mechanic,  or  clerk,  or  laborer,  and 
is  honest,  industrious  and  faithful.  A  short  time  only 
elapses  before  he  is  '  spotted  '  by  some  depraved  ex-con- 
vict, and  'blackmail'  is  demanded  on  threat  of  exposure. 
If  he  resists  the  claim,  and  is  still  trusted,  notwithstand- 
ing the  exposure  made  as  threatened,  it  is  well.  But 
how  often  is  that  likely  to  be  the  case?  Not  one  time  in 
twenty,  I  am  sorry  to  say.  If  he  submits  to  the  demand 
of  the  ex-convict,  then  he  is  at  his  mercy,  and  will  be 
driven  to  desperation,  if  not  to  suicide,  by  further  and 
still  more  exacting  demands.  Nor  is  this  the  other  side 
of  the  picture.  Can  he  escape  Scylla  and  not  fall  into 
Charybdis? 

"And  I  am  sorry  to  say  there  are  some — not  all — of 
the  police  in  San  Francisco  and  other  large  cities,  who 
seem  to  take  a  delight  in  pointing  out  these  poor  unfor- 
tunates as  '  State  prison  birds,'  and  thus  drive  them  from 


262      OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  V  A  ND  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 

honest  work  into  crime.  What  wonder,  then,  that  the 
percentage  of  real  and  permanent  reform  is  not  as  large 
as  could  be  desired?  I  feel  like  saying  to  these  outside, 
fault-finding  philanthropists,  'physicians,  heal  your- 
selves,* ere  throwing  upon  the  prison  officers  or  direct- 
ors the  blame  of  failure  in  efforts  to  reform.  Let  out- 
siders do  their  duty  as  men  and  Christians,  and  I  believe 
that  nearly  all  of  those  sent  here  for  the  first  time 
would  reform  and  lead  honest,  if  not  true,  godly,  Chris- 
tian lives,  when  restored  to  liberty.  I  hope  to  live  to 
see  the  day  when  this  shall  be  the  actual  fact,  and  not 
merely  a  picture  of  the  imagination." 

Upon  the  same  subject,  W.  C.  Gunn,  chaplain  and 
teacher  of  the  Iowa  State  Prison,  who  has  interested 
himself  greatly  in  the  welfare  of  discharged  convicts, 
says,  in  his  report: 

"  What  becomes  of  the  discharged  convicts,  is  a  ques- 
tion that  is  frequently  asked.  That  depends  very  much 
upon  how  they  are  treated  after  they  are  discharged. 
And  here  let  me  emphasize  what  I  said  two  years  ago. 
Perhaps  none,  unless  connected  with  a  prison,  and  but 
few  even  of  those,  have  the  remotest  idea  of  the  difficul- 
ties which  a  discharged  convict,  without  friends,  has  to 
meet  before  he  obtains  employment.  Many,  when  lib- 
erated, do  not  wish  to  return  to  the  place  from  which 
they  were  sent;  why,  I  know  not,  unless  realizing  their 
disgrace,  they  are  unwilling  to  go  back  where  it  is 
known.  Many  have  no  friends  or  relatives,  and,  as  a 
rule,  not  only  prefer  to  go,  but  do  go,  where  they  are 
unknown.  The  stigma  of  the  penitentiary  resting  upon 
them,  the  strength  of  public  opinion  against  them,  and 


PRISON  LABOR.  263 

nearly  penniless,  they  are  almost   compelled  to  do  one 

of    three  things;  beg,  starve  or  steal;  and,  alas  for  the 

weakness    of  good   resolutions,    the  latter  at  times   is 

resorted   to.      What   are    discipline   and    teaching   and 

reformation  in  prison,  unless  society  sustains  the  effort 

outside  of  the  prison?     Can  not  society  afford  to   try  the 

discharged  convict  once  more?     I  know    that  the  cloud 

of  the  penitentiary  hangs  heavily  over  him.     But   what 

if  it  does?     Should    not    Christian    men,  philanthropic 

men,  and  especially  neighbors,  do  what  they  can  to  save 

the  erring?     Let  the  following  letter,  received  from  one 

of  the    '  unfortunates,'   tell,   and   it  is  only  one  out    of 

several  in  my  possession: 

"  '  M ,  Iowa,  January  28,  1881. 

"  '  Rev.  Gunn,  Dear  Chaplain: — I  am  encouraged  to  address 
you  by  the  remembrance  of  the  kind  and  undeserved  interest  you 
manifested  in  my  welfare  during  my  stay  in  Ft.  Madison.  I  have 
been  at  home  now  five  months,  and  I  am  beginning  to  experience 
the  difficulties  which  attend  a  man  in  his  effort  to  regain  the  position 
he  held  in  the  estimation  of  his  fellows  before  departing  from  the 
path  of  rectitude.  My  professions  of  intent  to  lead  a  life  of  honesty 
are  distrusted,  and  I  am  tempted  to  relinquish  any  other  life  than 
that  almost  forced  upon  me  by  my  treatment  at  the  hands  of  my 
neighbors.  Your  appreciated  efforts  to  reclaim  the  fallen  emboldens 
me  to  turn  to  you  for  advice  and  encouragement,  etc' 

"While  that  unfortunate  man  was  in  the  penitentiary, 
he  was  bolted  in;  now  that  he  is  on  thje  outside  world  he 
is  bolted  out — bolted  out  from  the  sympathy  and  confi- 
dence of  his  neighbors,  bolted  out  from  the  workshop, 
bolted  out  from  farm  labor.  I  therefore  most  heartily 
recommend  that  a  State  Prison  Aid  Association  be 
organized,  with  a  branch  in  every  county,  and  that  per- 
sons with  large  sympathy  and  warm  hearts  be  encouraged 
to  assist  in  this  noble  enterprise,  thus  procuring,  for  all 


264     OL'R  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

who  desire  to  reform,  places  to  work,  where  they  can 
earn  an  honest  living,  by  this  means  shielding  the m 
from  idleness  and  from  the  merciless  attacks  of  unkind 
and  evil  disposed  persons. 

"  Kindness  oftentimes  may  be  scarce  towards  a  dis- 
charged convict,  but  it  is  not  wholly  dead.  There  are 
some  who  are  not  afraid  to  take  them  by  the  hand  and 
succor  them  in  time  of  need.  During  the  three  years 
and  one  month  of  my  chaplaincy,  I  have  found  good 
homes  for  three  hundred  and  five  out  of  the  six  hun- 
dred and  forty-six  discharged.  Only  tivo  of  these  were 
discharged  by  their  employers  on  account  of  dissatis- 
faction— one  in  Des  Moines  county,  for  not  earning  his 
wages,  and  the  other  in  Marshall  county,  for  smoking  too 
frequently.  Both  have  done  well  since.  But  what 
became  of  the  three  hundred  and  forty-one  for  whom  no 
homes  were  found?  As  far  as  I  am  able  to  learn,  thirty- 
nine  of  them  are  in  the  penitentiary,  seven  are  living  by 
gambling,  and  two  are  'fugitives  from  justice.'" 

The  Prisoners'  Aid  Societies  mentioned  above,  which 
have  in  late  years  been  formed  by  kind-hearted  and 
philanthropic  people,  are  doing  a  great  good,  but  they 
have,  after  all,  the  nature  of  a  palliative  and  not  of  a 
cure. 

INDUSTRIES    LIMITED. 

Keeping  all  prisoners  entirely  within  prison-walls,  as 
is  now  done,  greatly  limits  the  industries  which  they 
can  pursue,  and  the  result  is,  that  too  many  are  forced 
to  take  up  particular  trades,  which  they  would  not  have 
taken  up  as  free  men,  and  this  is  a  direct  injury  to  the 
honest  free  laborer  swho,  with  their  families,  are  depend- 


PRISON  LABOR.  265 

ent  for  their  living  upon  that  particular  trade.  These 
laborers  have  no  right  to  complain  of  men  working  at  a 
particular  trade  in  prison,  provided  it  appears  that  the 
parties  working  at  such  trade  in  prison  would  have 
worked  at  it  had  they  never  been  imprisoned,  and,  pro- 
vided, further,  tliat  the  effects  of  this  prison  labor  do  not 
reduce  their  wages  any  more  that  they  would  have  been 
reduced  had  the  prisoners  remained  free  men  and  fol- 
lowed the  same  trade  as  they  do  in  prison.  For  every 
one  has  a  right  to  follow  any  trade  that  he  may  wish. 
A  free  laborer  can  not  object  to  other  men  choosing 
whatever  trades  they  prefer.  A  fair  competition  between 
parties  similarly  situated  is  not  objected  to,  but  the  over- 
crowding of  certain  trades  by  purely  arbitrary  and 
unnatural  means  is  doing  an  injustice  to  those  that  have 
voluntarily  selected  those  trades  as  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood. 

If  the  prisoners  could  be  divided,  and  those  that  have 
long  sentences  to  serve,  or  that  are  guilty  of  heinous 
crimes,  be  kept  within  prison  walls  and  divided  among 
such  trades  as  can  well  be  carried  on  there,  the  number  as- 
signed to  each  would  be  small,  and,  probably,  not  in  excess 
of  the  number  that  would  have  selected  the  same  trades 
as  free  men.  And,  if  a  system  were  adopted  whereby 
the  temptation  to  escape  would  be  greatly  reduced,  then 
the  remainder  of  the  prisoners  could  be  taken  out  to 
labor  at  such  work  as  they  would,  to  a  great  extent, 
have  chosen  had  they  labored  as  free  men.  By  this 
means,  prison  labor  could  be  assigned  to  many  more 
branches  of  industry  than  is  possible  at  present.  Be- 
sides, the  moral  effect  would,  under  proper  regulations, 


::o6      OUR  FENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

be  much  better.  As  it  is,  a  great  number  of  men  are  set 
at  the  same  kind  of  work,  without  regard  to  their 
adaptation  for  it.  Instead,  therefore,  of  learning  trades 
or  occupations  which  they  could  follow  when  again  free, 
they  find,  upon  regaining  their  freedom,  that  they  have, 
in  fact,  no  occupation  at  all,  as  the  work  at  which  they 
have  been  engaged  was  not  the  kind  for  which  they 
were  adapted  or  which  they  could  successfully  follow. 

Further.  The  objections  to  convict  labor  now  so 
strenuously  urged  in  so  many  quarters,  could  be  re- 
moved without  increasing  the  burdens  of  the  public.  It 
will  be  noted  that  the  objection  is  more  to  the  method 
of  conducting  the  convict  labor,  and  of  bringing  it  into 
competition  with  free  labor,  than  to  the  working  of  con- 
victs at  all.  In  fact,  no  objection  could  be  urged  against 
this,  for  every  man  has  a  right  to  pursue  some  kind  of 
labor.  Nay,  it  is  his  duty  to  do  so.  When,  therefore, 
convicts  work  in  prisons,  they  are  doing  no  more  than 
they  would  have  done,  or  at  least  should  have  done,  as 
good  citizens. 

But,  besides  the  forcing  of  large  numbers  of  men  to 
perform  a  particular  kind  of  labor  which  they  otherwise 
would  not  have  performed,  the  objection  to  convict 
labor,  as  now  managed  in  most  prisons,  is,  that  it  is  con- 
tracted out  at  such  figures  that  the  honest  free  laborers 
are  reduced  to  starvation  in  the  necessary  competition 
which  ensues;  or,  in  case  the  convicts  work  under  the 
public  account  system,  that  their  products  are  sold 
cheaper  than  the  same  kind  of  goods  can  be  made  by 
free  labor  at  living  wages. 

That  goods  manufactured  on  public  account  for  the 


PRISON  LABOR.  267 

State  are  sold  at  lower  prices  than  the  like  goods  manu- 
factured by  free  labor  is,  I  believe,  not  generally  true, 
and  certainly  ought  not  to  be  permitted,  for  the  Slate 
ought  not  to  enter  into  competition  with  its  own  citi- 
zens. But  that  convicts  are  contracted  out  in  great 
numbers,  at  average  prices  (40  to  55  cents  per  day)  that 
appear  on  their  face  to  be  ruinous  to  free  labor,  is  true. 
At  present  there  is  much  ground  for  complaint, 
especially  in  regard  to  certain  -kinds  of  skilled  labor 
that  can  be  carried  on  in  a  prison  as  well  as  elsewhere. 
Thus,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  making  of  shoes,  sad- 
dlery, cigars,  and  a  number  of  other  articles  requiring 
skilled  labor,  by  convicts,  under  the  contract  system,  at 
present  injuriously  affects  the  free  laborers  in  these 
branches  of  industry,  and  it  effects  them  most  injuriousl}" 
in  dull  times,  for  in  good  times,  when  the  demand  is  equal 
to  the  production  of  the  entire  country,  all  find  employ- 
ment, and  that  the  contractor  of  prison  labor  is  making 
excessive  profits,  is  not  generally  noticed.  But  when 
times  are  dull  and  the  demand  limited  and  prices  low, 
then,  inasmuch  as  the  product  of  the  convict  labor  must 
continue  to  be  the  same — as  the  contracts  usually  run 
for  a  term  of  years — free  labor  has  to  suffer;  for,  should 
the  demand  be  no  greater  than  can  be  supplied  by  the 
prisons,  then  free  labor  would  either  have  to  seek  other 
employment  or  accept  such  wages  as  would  enable  it  to 
compete  with  convict  labor.  Of  course,  wages  would 
still  be  greater  than  the  convict's  wages,  for,  being  mucli 
more  productive,  free  labor  would  inevitably  command 
higher  wages;  but  still  they  would  be  lower  for  the 
prison   competition.     On    the   other   hand,    the    prison 


268     oi'K  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

contractor  also  finds  his  profits  reduced  in  dull  times, 
for  he  pays  the  same  wages  as  when  times  were  good, 
and  must  pay  these  right  along,  whether  he  can  sell  his 
products  or  not. 

Now,  if  a  system  were  introduced  by  which  convicts 
could  be  converted  into  voluntary  laborers,  and  paid 
something  near  the  wages  paid  voluntary  laborers,  con- 
vict labor  W'Ould  never  undersell  free  labor,  and  the 
prisoners  could  be  set  at  labor  for  which  they  are 
adapted,  and  thus  the  overcrowding  of  certain  branches 
of  industry  by  convicts  could  be  avoided.  True,  it  may 
be  said  that  by  changing  involuntarily  into  voluntary 
labor,  the  products  would  be  greater  than  at  present, 
and  must  still  more  affect  prices.  But  the  answer  is, 
that  there  are  no  more  men  at  work  than  would  be,  or 
at  least  should  be,  at  work  if  there  were  no  convicts  at 
all;  and,  as  their  labor  would  not  undersell  free  labor, 
there  could  be  no  moral  ground  of  objection.  And 
further,  the  real  trouble  now  wdth  convict  labor  is,  not 
that  all  industry  is  affected  by  it,  but  that  a  few  branches 
of  industry  are  overstocked  by  it. 


CHAPTER  IT. 

REMEDY. 

If  the  practice  recommended  in  Chapter  thirteen  of 
Part  First,  page  sixty-eight,  were  adopted,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  after  a  short  period,  in  which  the  more  hardened 
characters  would  be  weeded  out,  the  annual  commit- 
ments to  prison  would  be  diminished  by  more  than 
half,  and  the  prison  labor  question  would  thus  be  solved 
to  that  extent.  Then,  if  those  in  prispn  were  permitted 
to  earn  something  daily  for  themselves,  so  as  to  give 
them  an  interest  in  their  work,  and  thus  remove  the 
temptation  from  all  except  those  confined  for  long  terms, 
to  desert,  most  of  the  prisoners  could  be  set  at  work 
outside  of  prison  walls,  so  that  comparatively  few  would 
be  crowded  into  the  trades  where  they  come  into  com- 
petition with  skilled  labor,  who  would  not  otherwise 
have  pursued  the  same  calling.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
there  would  soon  be  no  question  of  prison  labor  to 
agitate  the  public. 

The  idea  of  working  prisoners  outside  of  prison  walls 
is  not  new.  It  has  been  tried,  successfully,  even  under 
exis.ting  laws,  which,  by  depriving  the  prisoner  of  almost 
all  hope,  may  be  said  to  encourage  desertion.  But 
unfortunately  the  only  States  where  this  plan  has  thus 
far  been  tried,  are  those  in  which  the  lease  system  pre- 
vails, under  which  the  most  shocking  barbarities  have 
been  practiced,  on  account  of  which   many  good   men 

269 


270      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

have  become  prejudiced  against  the  idea  of  letting 
prisoners  work  outside  of  prison,  at  all.  It  must,  how- 
ever, be  borne  in  mind  that  cruelty  may  be  practiced  as 
well  under  one  system  as  under  another,  and  that  there 
is  no  more  excuse  for  its  infliction  where  prisoners  work 
outside  of  prisons  than  where  they  do  not. 

The  Warden  of  the  Northern  Penitentiary  of  Illinois 
— an  institution  having  nearly  sixteen  hundred  inmates 
— recently  stated  to  the  writer  that  he  was  in  favor  of 
the  purchase  by  the  State  of  a  large  tract  of  land  lying 
near  the  prison,  which  would  enable  him  to  carry  on 
farming  and  gardening  wnth  the  prisoneis,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  supplying! the  prison  with  farm  and  garden  prod- 
ucts, and  he  added  that  he  believed  the  project  to  be 
entirely  practicable. 

To  carry  out  the  foregoing,  and  also  to  overcome  the 
objections  to  the  present  system  considered  in  the  last 
chapter,  it  will  be  necessary  to  change  involuntary  into 
voluntary  labor,  which  can  be  done  by  paying  each  con- 
vict wages  nearly  equal  to  the  current  wages  paid  to 
free  men  for  like  work,  and  then  to  charge  the  convict 
with  the  total  expense  of  his  keeping,  including  guard- 
ing, superintending,  clothing,  feeding,  etc.  As  the  aver- 
age cost  of  keeping  a  convict  is  usually  not  much  over 
thirty  cents  per  day,  and  as  he  could,  if  laboring  volun- 
tarily, earn  much  more,  there  would  soon  be  a  surplus  in 
his  favor.  This  surplus  should  be  placed  to  his  credit 
and  be  applied  toward  the  support  and  education  of  his 
family  or  other  dependents,  if  there  are  any,  and  if  there 
are  none,  then  to  be  held  on  deposit  until  his  discharge; 
and  when  he   is   discharged  he  should    be   paid  a  small 


REMEDY.  271 

portion  of  his  money — say  enough  for  transportation  to 
the  point  which  he  may  desire  to  reach,  and  for  his  sup- 
port for  a  month  or  longer,  until  he  shall  have  again 
become  accustomed  to  the  ways  of  the  world  and  have 
had  time  to  determine  what  he  shall  go  at  for  a  living, 
and  then  he  should  be  paid  the  remainder.  He  will  thus 
have  saved  something  out  of  the  years  of  his  confine- 
ment, and  will  have  something  to  start  on.  He  will  not 
be  driven  at  once  to  beg,  steal  or  starve,  and  will  not  be 
likely  soon  to  find  himself  again  on  the  way  to  the  pen- 
itentiary. 

This  would  be  salvation  to  all  those  that  really  wanted 
to  live  respectable  and  useful  lives,  and  it  would  have  a 
good  influence  on  even  the  abandoned;  for  nothing  is  so 
adapted  to  steady  a  man  as  first  training  him  to  work 
and  then  letting  him  accumulate  some  property.  As 
soon  as  he  has  something  to  call  his  own,  he  begins  to 
grow  conservative;  there  is  aroused  in  him  a  desire  to 
better  his  condition,  and  he  will  avoid  the  vicious  from 
a  sense  of  self-protection,  if  for  no  other  reason. 

Under  this  system  almost  every  convict  would  be- 
come willing  and  eager  to  work,  and  the  present  stolid 
indifference  of  some  prisoners,  who  care  for  nothing  but 
to  drag  through  the  weary  days,  the  hopeless  despair  of 
others,  and  the  desperation  of  still  others,  would  give 
way  to  hope  in  most,  and  to  comfort  and  satisfaction  in 
all;  for  even  they  who  know  that  their  days  must  end 
in  prison  would  feel  that  they  could  make  some  beings 
comfortable,  if  not  happy,  by  contributing  something  to 
support  those  to  whom  they  should  have  been  pro- 
tectors. 


2  72     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS, 

I  am  aware  that  the  State  can  not  carry  on  business 
as  economically  as  private  individuals — or,  at  least,  rarely 
does — but  it  will  be  noticed,  the  State  has  very  much  of 
an  advantage  to  start  with.  It  is  not  required  to  pay 
rent  or  interest  on  the  investment  in  buildings,  machin- 
ery, etc.,  for  even  in  those  institutions,  which  under  the 
present  system  boast  that  they  have  become  self-sus- 
taining, no  allowance  is  made  for  rent  or  interest  on 
investment.  This  is  certainly  a  large  item,  and  one 
would  suppose  it  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  enable  the 
State  to  pay  tlie  same  wages  (not  necessarily  per  day, 
but  for  work  done)  that  is  paid  by  private  parties,  and 
come  out  whole. 

But  as  shown  heretofore,  under  the  present  system 
the  State  annually  loses,  directly  and  indirectly,  very 
large  sums  of  money,  besides  the  loss,  both  financial  and 
of  a  higher  character,  that  will  result  from  the  evil 
effects  upon  a  large  proportion  of  her  citizens;  so  that  if 
the  State  were,  under  the  proposed  system,  to  lose 
money,  it  is  doubtful  whether  she  could  by  any  possibil- 
ity suffer  as  much  in  the  long  run  as  she  now  suffers. 
However,  as  there  would  be  at  least  twice  the  amount  of 
work  done  as  there  is  now,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
State  could  possibly  lose  anything. 

Should  the  contract  system  be  preferred  to  the  pub- 
lic account  system,  the  matter  can  be  easily  arranged  by 
requiring  the  contractor  to  pay  the  prisoner  for  what  he 
does  —  that  is,  in  all  cases,  where  possible,  to  pay  him  by 
the  piece;  where  this  can  not  be  done,  to  pay  him  for  a 
full  day's  work  when  he  does  it.  All  the  contractor  asks 
is    to   have  the  work  done.     If,  therefore,  a   convict  is 


REMEDY.  273 

willing  and  able  to  do  as  much  in  one  day  as  he  formerly 
did  in  two,  the  contractor  should  not  hesitate  to  pay 
him  double  the  wages.  Nay,  he  could,  in  that  case,  pay 
more  than  double  the  wages,  because  he  saves  the 
expense  of  superintendence  and  of  furnishing  power,  and 
of  other  incidentals  for  one  day — that  is,  in  that  case 
one-half  of  what  he  now  pays  for  the  last-named  items 
would  be  saved  to  him,  and  he  could  afford  to  pay  more 
than  double  the  wages  he  now  pays.  Besides,  the  work 
would  be  done  better,  for  a  willing  man  always  does  his 
work  better  than  an  unwilling  one,  and  his  goods  will 
therefore  command  a  higher  price  in  the  market.  But 
the  "  piece  price  "  system  of  managing  convict  labor  is 
the  best  thus  far  devised.  Under  it,  the  contractor 
simply  furnishes  the  material  and  agrees  to  pay  a  stipu- 
lated price  for  having  it  manufactured.  His  agents 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  prisoners,  as  now,  and  the 
State  neither  buys  material  nor  sells  manufactured 
products. 


274     OCR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Objection  that  Criminals  will  not  Work — Make 
Time  of  Discharge,  in  Part,  Depend  on  Surplus 
Earnings — Aids  in  Preserving  Discipline — Too 
Much  Prison  Labor — Working  Outside  Prison 
Walls — Waste  of  Sentiment — Labor  as  a  Part 
OF  the  Punishment — Results. 

It  will,  however,  be  objected  by  those  with  whom 
the  reformation  of  criminals  is  no  object,  who  see  noth- 
ing worthy  of  consideration  about  any  person  in  prison, 
that  the  criminal  classes  do  not  work  except  when  com- 
pelled, that  the  chance  of  earning  some  wages,  overand 
above  the  expense  of  their  keeping,  would  not  induce 
them  to  make  any  extra  effort;  and  that,  therefore,  the 
proposed  system  would  fail. 

To  this  I  reply  that,  supposing  the  objection  to  be 
good,  supposing  it  to  be  true  that  many  convicts  would 
not  do  any  more  than  they  were  compelled  to  do,  and 
consequently  would  not  earn  anything  over  and  above 
the  total  expense  of  their  keeping,  then  there  will  still 
be  nothing  lost.  Society  will  still  be  as  well  off  as  now, 
for  that  is  all  that  the  best  are  now  made  to  do,  on  the 
average. 

But  the  objection  is  not  well  taken,  for  it  has  been 
found  that  the  majority  are  eager  to  earn  something,  if 
only  given  a  chance.  Thus,  in  the  Michigan  State  Prison, 


RESULTS.         '  275 

where  the  contract  system  prevails,  and  where  no  pro- 
vision is  made  for  giving  the  convicts  an  opportunity  to 
earn  something  for  themselves,  but  where,  nevertheless, 
those  that  worked  by  the  piece  were  not  prohibited 
from  overwork,  it  appears  from  the  report  of  the  in- 
spectors, that  during  the  year  1881  this  class  of  convicts 
earned,  over  and  above  what  they  had  to  do,  $9,485.85; 
and  during  the  year  1882  they  earned  $11,154.75  by  vol- 
untary overwork.     Referring  to  this,  the  inspectors  say: 

"This  sum  has  been  paid  by  the  contractors  to  the 
prison,  and  been  credited  to  the  convicts  in  proportion 
to  their  several  earnings.  This  money  is  in  many  cases 
remitted  by  the  convict  to  his  family,  and  what  remains, 
if  anything,  is  paid  to  him  at  the  expiration  of  his  term. 
It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  some,  at  least, 
have  in  this  way  done  more  for  the  comfort  of  their  fam- 
ilies than  they  would  have  done  had  they  remained 
outside." 

This  was  earned  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no  provision 
had  been  made  for  them  to  earn  anything  for  them- 
selves. Will  anybody  deny  that  had  there  been  regula- 
tions permitting,  nay,  requiring  all  convicts,  including 
those  that  were  not  assigned  to  piece-work,  to  earn 
something  for  their  families  or  for  themselves,  that  they 
would  not  have  done  it,  especially  if  they  had  known 
that  they  could  not  be  set  at  liberty  until  they  had  made 
certain  provisions  of  this  kind.? 

In  the  inspectors'  report  of  the  Western  Penitentiary 
of  Pennsylvania,  I  find  the  following: 

"In  the  shops  we  aim  to  have  order  and  silence; 
unruly  conduct  is  punished,  and  excellence  of  labor  per- 


276     OUR  PEMAL^ MACHIXERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

formed  is  rewarded  by  a  proportionate  division  of  profit 
with  the  prisoners,  in  the  shape  of  overwork.  In  this 
way  many  of  the  convicts  are  enabled  to  make  weekly 
or  monthly  remittances  to  their  homes,  thus  contributing 
toward  the  support  and  comfort  of  the  dependent  ones, 
made  so  by  their  indiscretions.  During  the  past  two 
years,  $26,080  have  been  earned  in  this  way,  and  for  the 
most  part  distributed  as  stated." 

In  Minnesota  the  convict  in  the  State  Prison  is 
allowed,  for  good  conduct,  six  days  every  month,  for 
which  he  receives  the  same  rate  that  is  paid  by  the  con- 
tractors to  the  State.  The  money  thus  earned  may  be 
paid  by  the  prison  authorities  to  the  convict's  family,  if 
needy,  and  when  not  thus  paid,  it  is  given  to  the  convict 
on  being  discharged;  many  convicts  on  leaving  the 
prison  have  had  upwards  of  $150  to  their  credit,  with 
which  to  start  again  in  life.  Are  these  not  more  likely 
to  do  well  than  if  they  had  not  a  cent? 

In  1876  Mr.  Richard  Vaux,  president  of  the  board  of 
directors  of  the  Eastern  Penitentiary  of  Pennsylvania — 
one  of  the  very  best  institutions  of  the  kind  in  this 
country — in  speaking  of  the  work  done  there,  said: 

"  Manufacturing  material  is  bought  at  market  prices, 
and  the  goods  manufactured  are  sold  at  the  same;  so  that 
there  is  no  unfair  competition  with  manufacturers  who 
employ  honest  men.  The  convicts  are  allowed  pay  for 
over-time.  One  man  supported  a  ivife  and  family  outside  of 
prison  by  over-work  done  in  prison.  The  prisoners  cost 
about  thirty-four  cents  a  dzxy, per  capita.  Labor  is  not 
farmed  out,  nor  let  out  by  contract.  We  are  not  self- 
supporting,   and    I  trust    we    never    shall  be.     When  a 


RESULTS.  277 

prison  becomes  self-supporting,  it  is  just  what  prisons 
are  not  intended  to  do."     (The  italics  are  mine.) 

The  inspectors  of  the  same  prison,  in  their  report  for 
1881,  say: 

"  As  a  reformatory  agency,  intended  also  to  stimulate 
the  self-respect,  strengthen  and  preserve  the  ties  of 
father  and  husband  and  family,  the  system  of  over-work 
has  been  adopted  in  this  institution.  The  task  of  each 
prisoner,  able  to  work  after  he  has  been  taught,  is  fixed. 
All  the  prisoners  are  included  in  this  provision.  When 
ttie  task  has  been  completed,  then  whatever  excess  of 
work  is  done  by  the  prisoner  is  divided ;  one-half  is  given 
to  the  county  sending  the  individual,  and  the  other  half 
is  credited  to  him  on  the  books  of  the  clerk.  He  can 
give  orders  for  his  share  to  his  wife  and  family.  These 
orders  are  in  printed  forms,  signed  by  the  prisoner  and 
attested  by  his  overseer,  and  entered  into  a  separate 
account  kept  for  each  prisoner.  When  these  orders  are 
presented  to  the  clerk,  they  are  paid,  and  the  receipt 
endorsed  on  the  order.  If  no  orders  are  given,  the 
prisoner  receives  his  share  on  his  discharge.  During  the 
year,  over  $10,000  have  been  gained  by  the  convicts  and 
paid  to  them  or  their  respective  families.  It  is  believed 
that  decided  good  results  from  this  plan,  and  even  in 
an  economic  view,  it  is  of  decided  advantage.  Labor 
thus  applied  *  *  *  gives  to  convict  labor  a  phase 
that  neither  degrades  the  laborer  nor  adds  a  stigma  as  an 
inflicted  punishment." 

William  Kunz,  Superintendent  of  the  St.  Louis  Work- 
house, says: 

"  By  carefully  studying  the  habits  and   inclinations 


278      0  UR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  Y  A  ND  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 

of  the  prisoners,  I  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  a 
greater  amount  of  work  could  be  obtained  from  them  by 
offering  a  reward  to  the  industrious  prisoners,  than  by- 
exacting  work  from  them  under  the  threat  of  punish- 
ment. With  the  consent  of  the  Board  of  Public  Im- 
provements, and  the  approval  of  his  Honor,  the  Mayor, 
I  established  task-work  for  all  such  labor  as  the  possi- 
bilities would  allow,  whereby  a  prisoner  inclined  to  be 
industrious  has  the  opportunity  afforded  him  of  materi- 
ally shortening  his  imprisonment  by  making  overtime. 
Of  this  a  great  many  prisoners  have  availed  themselves. 
To  others,  to  whom,  from  the  nature  of  their  employ- 
ment, no  regular  task  could  be  assigned,  I  have  held  out 
the  promise  of  executive  clemency  as  a  reward  for  their 
industriousness,  and  it  has  frequently  been  earned,  and, 
after  a  proper  investigation,  has  been  granted  by  his 
Honor,  the  Mayor.  The  system  works  very  satisfactorily; 
the  foremen  in  charge  of  the  various  gangs  have  fewer 
complaints  of  indolence  of  prisoners;  cases  of  punish- 
ment for  failure  to  perform  the  amount  of  work  exp.ected 
are  becoming  rare,  and  the  production  of  the  institution 
has  been  materially  increased." 

Wines,  in  his  exhaustive  treatise  en  Prisons,  in  refer- 
ring to  America,  says: 

"In  a  few  of  our  prisons,  the  convicts  are  allowed 
some  small  share  of  their  earnings;and  the  influence  of 
this  is  admirable,  indeed,  almost  magical."  Again,  he 
says:  "  The  practice  of  allowing  prisoners  a  share  of 
their  earnings  has  not  been  extensively  adopted  in 
America.  But  whenever  the  principle  has  been  intro- 
duced, its  effect  has   been    excellent.     Let   me    cite    an 


RESULTS.  279 

example:  The  Allegheny  County  Workhouse,  at  Clare- 
mont,  Pennsylvania,  a  correctional  prison  for  persons 
guilty  of  minor  offenses,  has  introduced  this  principle 
into  its  administration.  Its  chief  industry  is  the  manu- 
facture of  kerosene  oil  barrels,  which  is  carried  on  in 
two  large  work-shops,  in  the  same  building,  one  above 
the  other.  At  a  certain  point  in  the  manufacture,  the 
casks  are  passed  from  the  lower  to  the  upper  shop, 
and  the  prisoner  receiving  them  at  this  point  is  required 
to  finish  seven  for  the  institution,  without  any  gain  to 
himself,  after  which,  for  each  additional  barrel  com- 
pleted he  gets  five  cents  for  himself.  The  average  day's 
work  outside,  for  a  free  laborer,  is  about  fourteen. 
Under  this  stimulus,  I  saw  prisoners  making  twenty- 
four  barrels  a  day,  and  the  average  daily  production  is 
from  sixteen  to  eighteen,  equal  to  one  and  one-fifth 
day's  work  of  ordinary  workmen  in  free  shops  outside. 
At  first  the  proprietors  of  the  petroleum  refineries 
laughed  the  superintendent  to  scorn  for  thinking  that 
he  could  utilize  the  labor  of  his  short-term  men  on  such 
a  manufacture  at  all,  the  average  sentence  being  a  little 
over  two  months.  But  the  laugh  is  now  on  the  other 
side,  for  the  prison-made  barrels  actually  command  five 
cents  apiece  more  in  the  market  than  those  made  in  the 
outside  factories.  Most  of  the  work  done  in  the  lower 
shop  is  unskilled,  and  for  a  time  the  prisoners  working 
there  received  no  part  of  their  earnings.  At  length  the 
superintendent  hit  upon  the  plan  of  giving  to  each  pris- 
oner against  whom  there  was  no  complaint  at  the  end  of 
the  day,  a  credit  of  ten  cents  for  that  day.  The  effect 
of  this  was  magical.     I  visited  the  establishment  three  or 


28o     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

four  months  after  the  plan  went  into  effect,  and  not  a 
man  in  the  shop  had  received  a  single  black  mark.  All 
had  regularly  gained  their  credits  of  ten  cents  a  day. 
The  daily  amount  of  work  performed  in  that  shop  had 
also  very  sensibly  increased." 

The  same  author  has  traced  the  history  of  the  strug- 
gle of  prison  reformation  in  Europe,  amid  the  corruption, 
brutality,  and  officialism  of  the  past,  and  cites  several 
instances  of  success,  that  merit  attention.  Speaking  of 
Belgium,  he  says: 

"  Near  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  all 
Europe  was  desolated  by  the  scourge  of  innumerable 
tramps.  *  *  *  Out  of  this  fact  grew  a  remarkable 
reform  in  penitentiary  science  and  practice  in  that  part 
of  Europe  which  now  forms  the  kingdom  of  Belgium. 
*  *  *  Prince  Charles,  then  (1765)  Governor-General 
of  Flanders,  called  attention  of  the  privy  council  at 
Vienna  to  the  inefficiency  of  whipping,  branding,  and 
torturing  for  the  repression  of  the  evil.  *  *  *  But 
the  most  important  agent  in  this  work  of  reform  was 
Viscount  Vilain  XIV.  *  *  *  He  was  the  founder 
of  the  Great  Central  Convict  Prison  at  Ghent.  *  *  * 
Here,  then,  we  find  at  Ghent,  already  applied,  nearly 
all  the  great  principles  which  the  world  is,  even  to-day, 
but  slowly  and  painfully  seeking  to  introduce  into  prison 
management.  What  are  they  ?  Reformation  as  a 
primary  end  to  be  kept  in  view;  hope  as  the  great  regen- 
erative force  ;  industrial  labor  as  another  of  the  vital 
forces  to  the  same  end  ;  education,  religious  and  literary, 
as  a  third  essential  agency;  abbreviation  of  sentence 
and   participation  in  earnings  as  incentives  to  diligence, 


RESULTS.  281 

obedience,  and  self-improvement;  the  enlistment  of  the 
will  of  the  criminal,  etc."  The  result  of  this  manage- 
ment was  a  remarkable  success.  Again,  he  says,  that: 
"Among  the  most  remarkable  of  the  early  experiments 
in  prison  discipline  was  that  of  Colonel  Montesino  in  the 
prison  of  Valencia,  Spain,  containing  from  1,000  to 
1,500  prisoners.  This  experiment  covered  the  period 
from  1835  to  1850.  Previously  the  re-committals  had 
run  up  to  forty,  fifty,  sixty,  and  even  seventy  per  cent. 
For  the  first  two  years  no  impression  was  made  upon 
these  figures,  but  after  that  they  fell  rapidly,  coming 
down  in  the  end  to  nearly,  or  quite,  zero.  To  what  was 
this  remarkable  decrease  owing  ?  Mainly  to  the  use  of 
moral  force,  instead  of  physical,  in  the  government  of 
the  prison.  He  introduced  a  great  variety  of  trades, 
about  forty  in  all,  and  allowed  the  prisoner  to  choose 
the  one  he  would  learn.  *  *  *  He  seized  those  great 
principles  which  the  Creator  has  impressed  upon  the 
human  soul,  and  molded  them  to  his  purpose.  He 
aimed  to  develop  manhood,  not  to  crush  it;  to  gain  the 
will,  not  simply  to  coerce  the  body.  He  employed  the 
law  of  love,  and  found  it  the  most  powerful  of  all  laws. 
*  *  *  He  excited  the  prisoners  to  diligence  by  allowing 
t/iem  a  by  no  means  inconsiderable  portion  of  their  earnings. 
He  enabled  them  to  raise  their  position,  step  by  step,  by 
their  own  industry  and  good  conduct.  *  *  *  Mr. 
Hoskins,  an  intelligent  English  traveler,  after  giving  an 
extended  account  of  the  prison,  adds  this  conclusion: 
"The  success  attending  the  reformation  of  the  pris- 
oners in  this  establishment  seems  really  a  miracle.'" 
Wines  also  records  one  other  remarkable  case,  and 


282     OUR  PEA'AL  MACHINERY  A. YD  ITS  VICTIMS. 

that  in  a  country  where  it  was  least  to  be  expected — 
Russia.  It  appears  that  Count  SoUohub  introduced  a 
system  in  the  House  of  Correction  in  Moscow,  similar  in 
its  general  features  to  that  last  described.  So  long  as 
a  convict  remained  an  apprentice,  he  got  no  part  of  the 
product  of  his  labor;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  adjuged  to 
be  a  master  workman,  he  received  a  proportion  equal  to 
two-thirds  of  his  entire  earnings,  the  greater  part  of 
which  was  reserved  for  him  as  a  little  capital  to  begin 
life  with  again  after  his  liberation.  So  effectual  was 
the  power  of  hope  thus  applied,  that  in  some  instances 
the  convict  apprentices  learned  their  trade  and  became 
master  workmen  in  two  months.  Nine-tenths  of  all 
learned  their  trade  so  thoroughly  that,  on  their  release, 
they  could  fill  the  position  of  foreman  in  other  shops. 
And  further,  there  were  scarce  any  relapses;  so  that  of 
2,128  persons  released  during  the  first  six  years,  only 
nine  were  returned  to  prison. 

But  the  times  were  not  ripe  for  such  a  reform  in 
either  of  the  countries  mentioned.  Corrupt  and  rapa- 
cious officialism,  which  sought  only  to  make  money  out 
of  the  prisoners,  soon  managed  to  get  other  men  in 
charge  of  the  prisons,  with  whom  reformation  was  no 
object;  and  as  in  each  case  the  systems  which  had  been 
productive  of  such  good  results  were  not  supported  by 
law,  but  had  depended  on  the  overseer  alone,  they  retired 
with  him,  and  the  old  order  of  things  continued. 

MAKE    TIME    OF    1)ISCH.\RGE    DEPEND     IN    PART    ON    SURPLUS 
EARNINGS. 

But  as  a  most  powerful  incentive  to  work  that  can  be 
thought  of,  if  such  a  thing  is  necessary  to  induce  some 


RESULTS.  283 

prisoners  to  work,  let  the  law  provide  that  no  prisoner  shall 
be  set  free  or  given  his  liberty  until  he  has  earned  a  certain 
sum  with  which  to  start  out  again  in  life — except  where  he 
has  been  supporting  his  family  out  of  extra  earnings. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  would  transform  almost 
every  convict  into  a  most  anxious  and  energetic  laborer. 
For  no  matter  how  averse  the  worst  man  may  be  to 
labor,  the  anxiety  to  get  free  again,  which  is  powerful 
with  all  prisoners,  would  overcome  the  aversion. 

AIDS   IN    PRESERVING    DISCIPLINE. 

Under  such  a  system,  it  would  be  a  comparatively 
easy  matter  to  keep  up  the  strictest  discipline.  Corporal 
punishment,  or  confinement  in  dark  cells,  etc.,  would 
rarely,  if  ever,  need  to  be  resorted  to;  for  the  fear  of 
having  his  surplus  earnings  diminished  by  very  small 
fines, as  well  as  having  his  term  of  imprisonment  length- 
ened, would  make  almost  every  prisoner  willing  and 
obedient. 

TOO    MUCH    PRISON    LABOR. 

If  it  is  objected  that  there  would  then  be  too  much 
prison  labor  performed,  by  which  free  labor  would  be 
injured,  I  answer  that,  in  the  first  place,  there  would  be 
no  more  men  at  work  than  there  would  be,  or  at  least 
should  be  at  work,  if  there  were  no  prisons;  and,  as  the 
prison  labor  is  no  cheaper  than  the  free  labor,  no  injus- 
tice would  be  done  to  the  free  laborer.  In  fact,  one 
great  cause  of  complaint  that  now  exists — viz.,  the 
cheapness  of  prison  labor — would  be  done  away  with. 

And  further,  as  the  temptation  to  desert  would  be 
but  slight,  the  prisoners  could  be  divided;  so  that  while 
the  vicious,  and  those  that  had  long  terms  to  serve,  were 


2S4     OUR  PENAL  MACHIXEKY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

kept  within  tlie  walls,  the  remainder  could  more  gener- 
ally be  set  at  work  for  which  they  were  adapted,  both 
inside  and  outside  of  the  prison.  Instead  of  being  con- 
fined to  the  few  trades  that  can  be  successfully  carried 
on  inside  prison  walls,  prisoners  could  be  set  at  almost 
every  kind  of  manual  labor;  and,  instead  of  having  to 
crowd  them  all  into  a  few  branches  of  industry,  as  is 
now  done,  thus  overstocking  them,  they  would  be  dis- 
tributed more  nearly  as  they  would  have  been  had  each 
selected  work  from  choice  as  a  free  man.  Surely  no 
fault  can  be  found  with  this.  In  all  cases  in  which  a 
young  man  who  is  imprisoned  for  a  term  of  years,  desires 
to  learn  a  trade  by  accepting  lower  wages  for  a  time,  he 
should  be  permitted  to  do  so.  In  other  cases  the  pris- 
oner should,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  be  set  at  such  work  as 
they  are  adapted  for,  or  as  they  followed  before  convic- 
tion, and  can  successfully  follow  after  they  are  again  set 
free.  Especially  should  those  that  had  no  honest  voca- 
tion before  conviction  be  set  at  work  which  they  could 
successfully  follow  when  again  set  free;  for  it  is  idle  to 
expect  a  man  to  be  industrious  and  make  an  honest  liv- 
ing, if  he  has  no  means  of  becoming  the  one,  or  of  doing 
the  other. 

WORKING  OUTSIDE  PRISON  WALLS. 

The  idea  of  working  prisoners  outside  of  prison 
w^alls,  wdien  possible,  has  been  tried  and  found  to  be 
highly  beneficial.  In  fact,  this  is  about  the  only  thing 
that  is  urged  in  favor  of  the  leasing  system  which  now 
prevails  in  many  of  the  Southern  States,  under  which 
prisoners  work  plantations,  work  mines,  build  railroads, 
etc.     True,  there  it  has  been   marred   l)y  the  brutality 


RESUL  TS.  285 

practiced;  the  lessees,  and  not  the  State,  having  charge 
of  the  prisoner,  and  feeling  no  interest  in  him  except  as 
a  machine,  to  be  worked  as  hard  as  possible,  at  the  least 
possible  outlay,  so  that  the  convict  soon  becomes 
worse  than  a  slave,  and  almost  destitute  of  hope;  for 
the  master  of  a  slave  had  an  interest  in  his  preservation 
as  so  much  property,  and  saw  to  it  that  he  w^as  at  least 
properly  fed,  housed,  and  cared  for.  But  not  so  with 
the  lessee  of  a  convict.  He  has  no  interest  in  the  con- 
vict, except  for  the  work  he  can  get  out  of  him.  But  if 
the  State  were  to  keep  charge  of  the  prisoner,  and  give 
him  an  interest  in  his  work,  the  whole  would  be 
changed.  Not  many  would  think  of  deserting,  and  per- 
haps the  majority  of  all  those  now  confined  could  be 
set  to  work  at  various  things  outside. 

As  some  convicts  (working  at  skilled  labor)  would 
get  higher  wages  than  those  that  worked  at  unskilled 
labor,  it  would,  perhaps,  be  proper  to  charge  the  skilled 
laborer  a  little  more  for  his  keeping  than  the  common 
laborer,  in  order  to  prevent  too  great  a  difference 
between  them  in  this  respect.  But,  as  heretofore  stated, 
in  all  cases  of  young  convicts  they  should  be  required 
to  learn  a  trade,  and  that  a  trade,  if  possible,  that  they 
would  have  selected  as  free  men.  But,  in  any  event,  the 
employments  should  be  diversified  as  much  as  possible. 

In  this  connection,  I  quote  from  the  report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  made  to  the  Legislature  of 
Illinois  for  the  year  ending  January  12,  1881,  which  is  a 
remarkably  full  and  able  document.  The  Bureau  had 
availed  itself  of  the  reports  of  the  committees  appointed 
by    different   States,    particularly    Massachusetts    and 


286     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

New  York,  to  investigate  the  question  of  prison  labor. 
Among  other  recommendations  are  the  following: 

^^  Fifth. — Increased  diversity  of  employment  in  penal 
institutions  tends  not  only  to  lessen  whatever  competi- 
tion now  exists,  but  has  an  excellent  reformatory  effect 
on  the  prisoners." 

Again,  the  same  report  recommends:  ''That,  when- 
ever possible,  farms  shall  be  carried  on  by  the  prison 
administration  for  the  supply  of  the  institution." 

WASTE  OF  SENTIMENT. 

But  there  are  some  who  will  pronounce  all  talk  about 
humane  treatment  of  convicts  a  waste  of  sentiment,  be- 
cause, say  they,  "  these  fellows  are  criminals,  and  are 
not  entitled  to  any  consideration,  and  would  neither  do 
better  nor  reform  if  they  could."  This  objection  is  ill- 
considered;  for,  as  heretofore  stated,  the  most  of  them 
are  weak  rather  than  criminal,  and,  secondly,  experience 
has  shown  that  the  great  majority  of  convicts  are  capa- 
ble of  reformation,  and  that  the  chances  of  their  reform- 
ing are  always  in  proportion  to  the  humane  treatment 
received.  Under  the  old  system  and  in  the  old  prisons, 
as  in  the  existing  prisons  of  this  country,  where  brutality 
is  still  the  reigning  deity  and  cruelty  the  only  disciplin- 
arian, there  is  no  hope  for  the  prisoners;  few  if  any  of 
them  ever  reform.  Even  if  they  possessed  both  self- 
respect  and  a  desire  to  do  better  at  the  time  of  entering 
the  prison,  the  treatment  received  either  forever  breaks 
their  spirits  or  makes  them  desperate;  and  they  leave 
the  prison,  if  they  survive  at  all,  either  total  wrecks  or 
desperate  enemies,  bound  to  be  avenged  upon  that  soci- 


RESULTS.  287 

ety  which  they  feel  has  not  simply  punished  theni  for 
their  misdeeds,  but  has  greatly  wronged,  if  not  ruined 
them.     (See  Chapters  VII  and  VIII,  of  Part  First.) 

LABOR    AS    PART    OF    THE    PUNISHMENT. 

Again,  it  will  be  objected  by  some  that  the  labor  of 
the  convict  is  a  part  of  his  punishment,  and,  therefore,  to 
give  him  the  benefit  of  a  part  of  his  labor  would  be  to 
reduce  his  punishment.  This  objection  grows  out  of  a 
misapprehension  of  the  objects  for  which  labor  was 
introduced  into  the  larger  prisons.  This  was  not  as  a 
punishment,  but  as  a  sanitary  and  humane  measure. 
Its  object  was  to  benefit  the  prisoners,  to  give  exercise 
to  the  bod}',  and  to  employ  the  mind.  For  it  was  found 
that  when  men  are  doomed  to  a  long  period  of  enforced 
inaction,  they  break  down,  both  physically  and  mentally, 
so  that  the  death-rate  in  the  old  prisons  was  fearfully 
large,  and  what  may  be  called  the  insanity  rate  was  still 
larger.  There  are  prisons  for  the  convicted  where  the 
prisoners  do  not  work.  Yet  in  the  eye  of  the  law  the 
punishment  is  the  same.  The  punishment  consists  in 
the  disgrace  of  conviction,  and  in  the  imprisonment, /.  e"., 
being  deprived  of  tlieir  freedom.  The  idea  of  the  State 
making  money  out  of  the  earnings  of  the  prisoners  was 
an  after-thought,  and  it  is  only  in  recent  years  that  this 
has  been  considered.  While  in  some  States  it  has  been 
thought  quite  an  achievement  to  make  the  penitentia- 
ries self-supporting ,  in  others,  where  the  subject  was  more 
carefully  considered,  this  has  been  made  a  secondary 
matter,  and  the  reformation  or  moral  development  of 
the  prisoners  is  considered  the  matter  of  greatest  mo- 


288     OCR  PEXAL  MACHIXERY  AXD  ITS  VICTIMS. 

ment.  Thus,  Governor  Hoyt.  oi  Pennsylvania,  in  his 
last  message  to  the  Legislature  of  that  State,  expressed 
himself,  as  follows,  on  this  subject: 

"In  neither  of  the  penitentiaries  of  this  State  has 
there  ever  been  an  attempt  yet  made  to  administer  them 
on  the  vulgar,  wicked,  unworthy  consideration  of  mak- 
ins:  them  self-sustaining.  In  neither  of  them  has  it  been 
forgotten  that  even  the  convict  is  a  human  being,  and 
that  his  body  and  soul  are  not  so  the  property  of  the  State 
that  both  may  be  crushed  out  in  the  effort  to  re-imburse 
the  State  the  cost  of  his  scanty  food,  and  at  the  end  of 
his  term  what  then  is  left  of  him  be  dismissed,  an  enemy 
of  human  society." 

But  all  that  could  possibly  be  claimed  for  the  State 
in  any  event,  is  that  it  should  be  paid  out  of  the  earn- 
ings of  the  convict  the  actual  cost  of  keeping  him.  It 
has  no  right  to  make  a  slave  of  him.  It  has  no  right  to 
take  his  services  from  him  without  paying  him,  an}' 
more  than  it  has  a  right  to  take  his  property  from  him 
without  making  compensation  for  it.  When,  therefore, 
as  at  present,  the  State  prohibits  him  from  earning  any- 
thing over  and  above  the  expense  of  keeping  him,  it  is 
forcibly  taking  something  valuable  from  him  without 
making  compensation.  For  it  might  as  well  take  his 
property  as  his  time.  While  it  has  the  legal  right  to 
take  both  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  make  good  its  out- 
lay, it  has  no  right  to  take  any  more.  This  is  no  part 
of  the  legal  punishment.  The  idea  of  the  State  trying 
to  make  money,  over  and  above  the  outlay,  out  of  its 
convicts,  is  monstrous;  and  the  right  to  do  so  has  never 


RESUL  TS.  289 

yet  been  claimed.  See  report  of  inspectors  of  Penn- 
sylvania penitentiary  on  this  subject  as  follows: 

"  There  is  a  broader,  more  scientific,  and  far  more 
important  view  to  be  taken  of  the  duty  society  owes  to 
itself,  and  to  those  convicted  for  crimes  against  its  secur- 
ity and  welfare,  than  that  narrow,  selfish  and  pecuniar}- 
consideration  which  is  satisfied  in  proclaiming  that  the 
State  has  made  a  money  profit  out  of  the  crimes  of  its 
citizens.' 

The  plan  suggested  gives  the  State  ever}-thing  it  is 
entitled  to;  and,  I  will  add,  it  is  a  serious  question 
whether  the  State  would  not  better  forego  even  the 
right  to  deduct  the  cost  of  keeping,  in  some  cases,  in 
order  that  the  prisoner  may  be  the  more  certain  to  be 
self-supporting  when  again  free,  than  to  take  the  chance 
of  having  to  re-arrest  and  re-incarcerate  him. 

RESULTS. 

I  therefore  claim  that  by  the  proposed  change 

First. — Discipline  could  be  easil)^  maintained. 

Seco7id. — There  would  be  no  loss  in  productive  labor 
to  society;  in  fact  there  would  be  an  increase,  for  those 
that  have  never  been  taught  to  work,  and  consequently 
prey  upon  the  community,  would  not  only  be  compelled 
to  work  as  much  as  they  are  now.  but  most  of  them 
would,  under  the  conditions  mentioned  above,  work  to 
the  best  of  their  abilities,  so  that  in  efifect  there  would  be 
restored  to  society  a  vast  amount  of  productive  labor 
which  is  now  lost. 

Third. — The  innocent,  /.  <r.,  the  family  and  dependents 
of  the  convict,  would  not  be  punished  by  being  deprived 
of  his  support,  as  they  now  are,  but  would  be  supported 


2 go       OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

by  his  earnings — not  only  as  well  as,  but  in  many  cases, 
where  he  was  dissolute,  very  much  better  than  when  he 
was  a  free  man. 

Fourth. — The  kinds  of  labor  that  could  then  be 
carried  on  being  greatly  increased,  the  convict  being  put 
to  work  at  something  for  which  he  was  adapted  and 
which  he  could  follow  when  again  released,  would,  as  a 
rule,  learn  to  do  his  work  well;  and,  further,  would  learn 
to  work  rapidly,  and,  thus,  instead  of  being  turned  out 
a  stolid  and  desperate  man,  who  for  years  has  trained 
himself  simply  to  put  in  his  time  without  regard  to 
results,  and  is,  consequently,  not  prepared  to  do  a  full 
day's  work,  he  would  be  able  to  do  as  much  work  as  any- 
body, and  therefore  much  more  likely  to  get  along. 

Fifth. — When  again  set  free,  if  his  money  has  not  been 
used  to  support  his  family,  he  would,  in  many  cases,  be 
comparatively  independent;  he  would  not  find  himself 
without  money  and  without  friends,  shunned  by  every- 
body and  unable  to  get  work,  and  tlius  ato-nce  driven  to 
beg  or  steal;  but  would  have  money  enough,  not  only  to 
support  him  for  some  time,  until  he  could  find  something 
to  go  at,  but  in  many  cases,  where  the  best  years  of  his 
life  have  been  spent  in  prison,  he  would  have  means 
enough  to  enable  him  to  do  a  small  business  for  himself. 

Sixth. — All  convicts  would  not  then  be  forced  into  a 
few  trades,  and  the  present  objections  to  convict  labor 
would  be  at  least  in  part  removed. 

Seventh. — All  the  chances  of  reformation  and  develop- 
ment of  moral  character  would  be  in  favor  of  the  con- 
vict, instead  of  beingalmost  entirely  against  him,  as  now. 


Appendix. 


UNNECESSARY  IMPRISONMENT. 


An  Address  Delivered  Before  the  National  Prison 
Reform  Association,  at  Detroit,  Mich.,  Oct, 
21,   1885,  BY  John  P.  Altgeld. 

Early  in  this  century  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  after  years 
of  disappointment,  succeeded  in  affecting  what  was 
regarded  as  a  great  reform  in  the  criminal  law  of  Eng- 
land. But  liis  reforms  were  limited  in  their  scope,  and 
related  only  to  the  punishment  to  be  inflicted  after  trial 
and  conviction  in  certain  classes  of  felonies.  He  stopped 
the  practice  of  inflicting  inhuman  barbarities  in  the 
name  of  punishment  in  certain  cases;  and  so  great  was 
the  opposition  that  it  took  all  his  life  to  accomplish 
this.  He  had  no  time  to  insist  that  the  punishment 
inflicted  on  the  poor,who  can  not  pay  a  fine, and  are  guilty, 
say,  of  a  breach  of  the  peace,  should  differ  not  only  in 
degree,  but  also  in  character,  from  that  meted  to  those 
guilty  of  heinous  crimes — that  the  former  should  be 
treated  rather  as  moral  patients  who  needed  treatment, 
than  malefactors  to  be  punished.  He  had  not  the  time 
to  point  out  that  it  was  monstrous  to  treat  all  that  may 
chance  to  be  taken   into  custody  precisely  alike    until 

291 


292        OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AN D  ITS   VICTIMS. 

after  trial  and  conviction  (unless  they  can  give  bail) 
whether  they  have  committed  a  felony  or  simply  shouted 
too  loud  upon  the  streets. 

In  these  two  particulars,  at  least,  the  criminal  law 
has  undergone  but  little,  if  any,  change;  it  stands  to-day 
substantially  as  it  did  centuries  ago,  and  may  be  said  to 
be  mediaeval  not  only  in  origin  but  in  character.  And 
the  various  criminal  codes  of  this  country  are,  with 
some  slight  modifications,  simply  enactments  of  the 
criminal  law  of  England  as  left  by  Romilly;  and  most 
of  the  cities  and  municipalities,  in  framing  their  ordi- 
nances in  relation  to  minor  offenses,  have  blindly  fol- 
lowed the  codes  in  this  respect.  So  that  young  men  and 
boys,  and  even  girls,  accused  of  violating  some  city 
ordinance,  are  treated  by  the  police  and  the  police  mag- 
istrates, in  the  first  instance,  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
hardened  criminal.  They  are  arrested,  not  infrequently 
clubbed,  sometimes  handcuffed,  marched  through  the 
streets,  in  charge  of  an  officer,  to  the  station,  which  in 
many  cases  is  worse  than  a  jail,  where  a  full  description 
of  each  is  written  down  opposite  their  respective  names, 
and  then  they  are  required  to  give  bail  for  their  appear- 
ance at  some  time  in  the  future  when  the  magistrate  can 
hear  their  case.  If  they  can  not  furnish  the  bond 
instantly — and  generally  they  can  not — they  are  shoved 
into  a  cell,  and  frequently  occupy  the  same  cell  for  a 
night,  and  sometimes  for  a  week,  with  the  most  desperate 
of  criminals.  The  station-keeper  is  not  to  blame  for 
this  for  the  law  has  made  no  other  provision  and  left  no 
alternative  but  to  lock  them  up. 

Attend  a  session  of  the  police  court  in  any  of  our  large 


APPENDIX.  293 

cities, on  almost  any  morning,and  you  will  see  on  the  saw- 
dust in  the  prisoner's  pen  a  miscellaneous  crowd  of  human 
beings  of  both  sexes,  ranging  from  middle  life  down  to 
tender  years,  nearly  all  from  the  less  fortunate  class 
in  life — poor,  more  or  less  ragged,  with  misery  stamped 
deep  into  their  faces,  weak,  with  little  or  no  training,  no 
steady  habits,  without  homes  worthy  of  the  name,  and 
raised  in  an  atmosphere  destitute  of  good,  and  pregnant 
with  vicious  influences.  As  their  cases  are  called,  you 
learn  that  about  one  out  of  twelve  is  charged  with  a 
serious  offense,  about  five-twelfths  are  charged  with 
minor  offenses,  but  there  is  something  about  the  appear- 
ance of  the  accused  which  tells  you  they  have  made  this 
round  before.  The  remaining  half  are  also  charged 
with  minor  offenses,  such  as  drunkenness,  disorderliness, 
etc.,  but  you  soon  become  satisfied  that  they  are  not  yet 
thoroughly  depraved;  that  while  they  may  have  violated 
some  ordinance,  they  yet  have  the  stuff  in  them  to  make 
good  citizens  if  given  a  little  better  chance;  and,  as  you 
look  at  them,  the  conviction  settles  in  your  mind  that  it 
was  unnecessary,  and  therefore  wrong,  to  drag  them  in 
and  corrall  them  like  so  many  cattle,  and  that  neither 
they  nor  anybody  else  will  be  benefited  by  such  treat- 
ment. If  you  ask  the  magistrate  why  they  were  thus 
treated  before  they  had  even  been  tried  to  see  if  they 
were  guilty,  he  will  tell  you  that  the  law  required  this; 
that  under  the  law  no  other  course  was  open. 

You  sit  down  while  their  cases  are  heard,  and  to 
your  surprise  find  that  about  one-third  are  discharged 
by  the  magistrate  because  the  evidence  fails  to  show 
that  they  were  guilty  of  any  offense    whatever.     (The 


2  94     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

police  reports  show  that  nearly  one-third  of  all  that  are 
arrested  are  discharged  by  the  magistrate.)  Turning 
then  to  those  not  discharged,  you  find  that  a  few,  being 
shown  to  be  probably  guilty  of  the  graver  offenses,  are 
bound  over  for  the  action  of  the  grand  jury,  while  the 
great  majority  are  shown  to  have  violated  some  ordi- 
nance, and  are  fined;  and  as  the  fines  are  not  paid  at 
once  in  many  cases,  you  see  men,  women,  and  often 
children,  crowded  into  an  omnibus  with  iron  grating  at 
windows  and  door,  and  driven  to  the  work-house  or  to 
the  Bridewell  (which  may  properly  be  called  a  short- 
term  Penitentiary)  to  work  out  the  fine,  or,  in  the 
absence  of  a  work-house,  they  are  led  back  to  jail  to 
serve  out  the  fine  at  so  much  a  day. 

Dismissing  from  your  mind  those  bound  over  for  the 
action  of  the  grand  jury,  and  calming  your  feelings  by 
saying  that  the  security  of  society  requires  that  those 
shown  to  be  even  probably  guilty  of  serious  offenses 
against  property  or  human  life  should  not  be  permitted 
to  roam  at  large,  you  turn  to  consider  the  omnibus-load 
of  ragged  humanity — some  thoroughly  vicious,  some 
simply  besotted,  some  almost  innocent.  Children, 
women,  men,  all  thoroughly  wretched,  going  to  the 
Bridewell — some  for  twenty,  some  for  sixty,  some  for 
ninety  da3^s,  and  a  few  for  even  a  longer  time,  for  having 
violated  some  city  ordinance;  and  as  you  wonder  what 
is  ultimately  to  become  of  these  people,  you  find  your- 
self both  asking  and  then  answering  questions  after  this 
fashion: 

"  Will  these  people  be  any  better  when  they  regain 
their  liberty?"      "  No;  for  there  is  nothing  in  this  treat- 


APPENDIX.  295 

merit  that  is  adapted  to  make  anybody  better."  "Will 
they  be  more  intelligent  or  better  educated?"  *'No." 
"Will  the  idle  be  more  industrious?''  "  No."  Will  the 
industrious  be  more  able  to  get  employment?"  "No; 
on  the  contrary,  this  stigma  will  be  in  their  way." 
"Will  the  untrained  be  masters  of  a  trade?"  "No." 
"Will  they  have  better  homes?"  "No."  "Better 
friends?"  ''No."  "Better  surroundings?"  "No;  if 
anything,  poorer  surroundings."  "Will  those  that 
now  have  no  homes  then  have  places  to  which  they 
can  go?"  "No."  "  Will  society  extend  them  a  helping 
hand?"  "No."  "Will  there  be  any  Christian  door 
open  to  receive  the  women  and  children  on  their  return?" 
"Scarcely."  "Will  the  self-respect  of  any  be  raised 
and  they,  therefore,  be  stronger?"  "No;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  self-respect  of  all  will  be  lowered  and  they 
will,  therefore,  be  weaker."  "Will  the  good-intentioned, 
but  weak,  be  better  off?  "  "No."  "Will  the  vicious)y 
inclined  be  more  subdued?"  "No;  on  the  contrary 
they  will  be  a  little  more  desperate."  "Will  those  with- 
out homes  have  any  money  when  they  leave  the  prison, 
with  which  to  maintain  themselves  until  they  can  find  a 
home  or  something  to  do?"  "  No;  not  money  enough 
to  pay  for  a  night's  lodging."  "If  men  who  have  not 
been  imprisoned  find  it  very  difificult  to  get  employment, 
will  these  people  find  it  easier?  "  "  No;  on  the  contrary, 
they  will  find  it  harder."  "  Then  what  are  many  of 
them  to  do?"  "Well,  they  can  beg,  starve,  or  steal." 
"  How  will  the  police  treat  them?"  "Well,  the  police 
call  them  jail-birds,  or  Bridewell-birds,  and  seem  to  take 
delight  in  'running  them  in'  again  at  the  earliest  possi- 


296     OUR  PENAL  MACI/LVERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

ble  opportunity."  "  Then  will  many  of  these  people 
make  this  round  again  soon?"  "  Yes;  experience  teaches 
that  they  will,  and  that  they  will  become  a  little  more 
vicious  and  desperate  as  they  do  so." 

"  Referring  to  those  not  yet  vicious  or  crimmal — 
the  boys,  the  women,  and  first  offenders  generally — 
whence  does  society  derive  its  power  thus  to  incar- 
cerate them?"  "From  the  right  of  self-protection." 
"  Was  It,  then,  necessary  for  the  immediate  protection 
of  society  thus  to  treat  these  first  offenders? "  "  Oh,  no; 
but  this  is  done  to  enforce  respect  for  the  majesty  of  the 
law,  and  thus  prevent  others  from  violating  it."  "  How 
long  has  this  been  going  on?"  "Oh,  several  hundred 
years."  "Well,  then,  how  has  it  worked;  does  this  prac- 
tice actually  deter  others,  and  are  there  really  fewer 
arrests  now  in  proportion  to  population  than  formerly?" 
"No;  to  tell  the  truth,  there  are  more."  "Can  this 
practice,  then,  be  truly  said  to  protect  society?"  "Well, 
no."  "But  suppose  that  arrest  and  imprisonment  had  a 
repressive  influence  on  outsiders;  would  you  not  get 
enough  of  it  by  the  arrest  and  incarceration  of  the  act- 
ual criminals  and  hard  cases,  and  do  you  not  destroy  the 
efficacy  of  your  remedy — in  fact,  rob  it  of  its  influence — 
by  applying  it  so  indiscriminately^and  making  it  so  com- 
mon?" "Well,  the  results  indicate  that  this  is  so." 
Finally:  "Does  society  get  any  benefit  from  this  treat- 
ment of  its  first  offenders?"  "  On  the  contrary,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  expense,  it  is  a  question  whether  this 
practice  of  imprisoning  people  for  trifling  offenses  does 
not  constitute  the  training  which  crushes  the  self- 
respect,  and,  by  degrees,  forms  those  desperate  charac- 
ters whose  crimes  all  over  the  land  make  men  shudder." 


APPENDIX.  297 

Now,  I  ask,  if — instead  of  this  superficial,  and,  in  a 
sense,  unjust  system,  which  requires  a  conviction  if  a 
technical  offense  be  proven,  and  after  conviction  allows 
some  that  can  pay  a  fine  to  escape  incarceration,  while 
it  sends  the  poor  to  the  Bridewell,  no  matter  what  their 
physical  or  moral  conditions  may  be,  and  no  matter 
what  the  past  history  of  the  accused  may  be,  and  with- 
out reference  to  the  question  as  to  whether  such  a  course 
is  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  society — it  would  not 
be  better  in  all  minor  offenses  to  adopt  a  practice  which 
would  require,  not  only  proof  of  a  technical  offense,  but 
also  an  inquiry  into  the  moral  condition  of  the  accused, 
his  habits,  associations,  etc.,  and  then,  except  in  extrem.e 
cases,  permit,  if  you  please,  a  suspension  of  sentence, 
and  release  the  accused  with  the  understanding  that  if 
his  conduct  in  the  future  gives  no  offense  he  will  not  be 
disturbed,  but  that  otherwise  he  will  be  taken  into  cus- 
tody ?  This  would  have  none  of  the  degrading  influence 
of  actual  imprisonment,  while  at  the  same  time  it  would 
be  a  most  powerful  incentive  to  good  conduct.  Then  it 
should  be  the  duty  of  some  officer  to  assist  the  delin- 
quent, as  far  as  possible,  in  getting  employment,  finding 
a  home,  etc.  This  latter  plan  has  been  tried  both  in 
Massachusetts  and  in  Baltimore,  with  the  most  happy 
results. 

And  in  extreme  cases,  or  cases  in  which  repetition  of 
offense  requires  a  sentence  of  imprisonment,  would  it 
not  be  better  to  adopt  the  indeterminate  sentence  sys- 
tem, whereby  the  maximum  time  of  imprisonment  would 
be  fixed,  but  the  actual  term  would  be  determined  by 
the  conduct  of   the  accused,  and   his  probable  ability  to 


■■'■J^     0  UR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  Y  AND  I TS   V/C  TIMS. 

become  a  l:i\v-abiding  citizen  ?  And  supplement  this, 
not  only  with  educational  influences  that  shall  develop  his 
character,  but  also  with  a  provision  requiring  him  to 
work,  and,  at  the  same  time,  giving  him  an  interest  in  his 
work,  so  that  a  certain  per  cent,  of  what  he  earned  every 
day  shall  be  carried  to  his  credit,  and  be  applied,  either 
to  the  support  of  his  family  or  paid  to  him,  not  at,  but 
after,  the  time  of  his  discharge.  And  further  provide 
that  in  no  case  shall  a  prisoner  be  discharged  until  he 
has  earned  a  sufficient  sum  to  his  credit,  so  that  on 
regaining  his  liberty  he  will  not  be  an  outcast  or  in  a 
position  in  which  about  the  only  alternative  he  has  is  to 
steal  or  starve. 

The  experiment  of  giving  prisoners  a  part  of  their 
earnings  has  worked  almost  like  magic  where  it  has  been 
fairly  tried,  and  if  the  provision  were  added  requiring 
them  to  have  something  ahead  before  they  could  be  set 
at  liberty,  almost  every  prisoner  would  be  a  willing 
laborer,  which  is  the  very  first  requisite  effecting  his 
reformation  and  developing  character.  Under  such  a 
system  only  the  incorrigible  would  ever  need  to  be  im- 
prisoned, and,  when  they  are  imprisoned,  instead  of 
being  discharged  in  twenty  or  sixty  days,  as  is  now  the 
case,  simply  to  make  the  same  round  again,  they  would 
be  held  for  such  a  length  of  time  and  under  such  condi- 
tions as  would  make  it  at  least  possible  to  create  habits 
of  industry  and  develop  character,  so  that,  when  finally 
released,  there  would  be  at  least  ground  to  hope  for 
reform.  The  large  class  of  repeaters,  loafers,  and  known 
hard  cases,  would  soon  be  weeded  out  and  subjected  to 
a  course  of  training,  which  would  not  only  tend  to  make 


APPENDIX.  299 

them  steady  and  self-supporting,  but  would  free  society 
from  their  presence  and  put  an  end  to  the  farce  of  per- 
petual re-conviction. 

THOSE    DISCHARGED    BY    THE    MAGISTRATE. 

Turning  now  to  those  that  were  discharged  ;  what 
about  them  ?  Well,  most  of  what  has  been  said  about 
those  not  discharged  will  apply,  if  possible,  with  greater 
force  to  these  ;  for  most  of  them  were  innocent,  yet 
they  have  been  imprisoned  ;  their  names  and  a  complete 
description  of  their  persons  are  on  the  prison  records. 
They  have  been  wronged,  and  will  feel  the  indignity  to 
which  they  were  subjected  as  long  as  they  live.  They 
have  been  shoved  down  in  the  struggle  to  rise.  They  will 
hate  and  keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  police.  Many  will 
S3^mpathize  with  those  that  circumvent  and  defy  the 
police.  The}^  will  be  more  ready  to  slink  into  dark 
places  ;  and  as  they  become  accustomed  to  dark  places, 
they  will  become  familiar  with  dark  deeds,  and  many  of 
them  will  soon  make  the  round  with  those  in  the  omni- 
bus, and  in  time  form  a  part  of  that  ubiquitous  horde 
against  which  we  bolt  our  doors  at  night,  and  whose 
nocturnal  visits  we  dread  worse  than  the  plague. 
Society,  in  making  war  on  these  people  without 
cause,  has  wronged  them,  and,  at  the  same  time,  made 
enemies  of  such  as  are  certain  to  be  avenged. 

But  some  one  will  ask  whether  there  is  enough  in  all 
these  things  to  make  much  fuss  necessary.  In  reply,  I 
will  refer  to  the  Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Police 
of  Chicago,  for  1884  ;  and  I  take  this,  because,  in  Chi- 
cago, the  present  system  is  found  at  its  best,  Chicago 


300     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

having  one  of  the  finest  and  best-managed  police  forces 
in  the  country,  and  the  proportion  of  arrests  to  popula- 
tion is,  if  anything,  smaller  there  than  in  other  large 
cities.  According  to  the  report,  the  whole  number 
arrested  in  that  city  by  the  police,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
arrests  by  State  and  county  officials,  during  the  year,  was 
39,434.  Of  these,  16,260,  or  considerably  more  than  one- 
third,  were  discharged  by  the  magistrates;  about  2,000, 
or  five  per  cent,  of  all  arrested,  were  held  for  the  action 
of  the  grand  jury  on  criminal  charges  ;  about  900,  or  one 
out  of  forty,  were  sent  to  hospitals  or  asylums  ;  and 
about  20,000,  or  a  little  over  half  of  all  arrested,  were 
fined  by  the  magistrates ;  8,547,  or  about  one-fifth 
of  all  arrested,  were  females  ;  17,566,  or  nearly  half  of 
all  arrested,  were  without  any  occupations.  Of  the  whole 
number  arrested,  over,  23,000  or  considerably  over  half, 
were  originally  only  charged  with  being  either  drunk  or 
disorderly ;  and  the  fact  that  out  of  nearly  40,000 
arrested,  only  about  2,000  were  held  on  criminal  charges, 
shows  that  95  per  cent,  were  arrested  for  the  minor 
offenses.  Of  these,  6,532  were  sent  to  the  Bridewell  for 
non-payment  of  fines,  which  shows  that  they  were  of 
the  very  poor. 

As  already  stated,  in  many  sections  of  tne  country 
the  proportion  of  arrests  to  the  population  is  greater 
than  in  Chicago.  It  is,  therefore,  safe  to  say  that  dur- 
ing that  year  there  were,  including  repeaters,  nearly 
two  millions  and  a  half  people  arrested  in  the  United 
States,  of  whom  about  three-fourths  of  a  million  were 
discharged  by  the  magistrates  because  it  was  not  proven 
that  they  had  violated  any  law,  and,  therefore,  should  not 


APPENDIX.  301 

have  been  arrested.  Notwithstanding  the  appallingly 
large  number  of  arrests,  crime  seems  to  be  on  the  in- 
crease, and  careful  observers  are  asking  the  question 
whether  our  penal  system,  instead  of  being  a  success,  is 
not,  through  the  needless  arrests  and  the  blind  applica- 
tion of  brute  force,  actually  swelling  the  number  of 
criminals  in  the  land.  We  fancy  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  a  great  bulwark  of  liberty,  but 
you  would  be  astonished  to  see  with  what  ease  a  police- 
man and  a  police  magistrate  will  brush  it  all  away  when 
dealing  with  the  poor. 

The  question  may  now  be  asked:  "Why  should  peo- 
ple be  arrested  and  locked  up  before  there  has  been  an 
examination  to  see  if  they  are  guilty  of  an)^  offense?'* 
In  reply,  we  say  that  it  is  right  that  persons  charged 
with  crimes  which  indicate  a  wanton  disregard  of 
human  life  or  of  the  property-rights  of  others,  on  the 
part  of  the  accused,  should  be  restrained  as  long  as  there 
is  even  a  probability  of  their  guilt;  that  the  safety  of 
society  may  require  this.  But  I  submit  that  in  all  those 
cases  where  the  offense  charged  is  simply  a  misde- 
meanor, and  where  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that 
society  will  in  some  way  suffer  or  be  endangered  before 
a  trial  can  be  had,  unless  the  accused  is  placed  in  cus- 
tody or  put  under  bonds,  he  should  not  be  deprived  of 
his  liberty  until  shown  to  be  guilty, 

"  O,  but,"  says  some  one,  "if  that  were  the  practice, 
every  one  in  danger  of  being  convicted  of  a  misde- 
meanor would  run  off,  so  that  by  the  time  you  had  your 
trial  there  would  be  nobody  to  be  fined  or  to  collect  costs 
from."     Well,  suppose  for  the   moment   that   this  were 


302       plU^  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  JV(  VIMS. 

true,  who  would  suffer  by  it?  Mind  you,  those  that  we 
are  considering  are  not  criminals.  There  is  nothing  in 
their  case  to  indicate  that  if  they  were  to  go  away  and 
settle  in  some  other  community,  they  would  endanger 
the  lives,  or  property,  or  even  the  peace  of  others.  And 
this  is  the  only  ground  upon  which  society  has  the  riglit 
to  deprive  a  citizen  of  his  liberty  before  conviction. 

Furthermore,  if  those  charged  simply  with  the  more 
trivial  offenses  were  to  leave  the  country  before  convic- 
tion, never  to  return,  would  not  this,  of  itself,  be  as  severe 
a  punishment  for  them  as  could  be  inflicted?  The 
thought  of  being  obliged  suddenly  and  forever  to  leave 
the  community  in  which  one  has  his  abode,  is,  to  most 
people,  horrible — so  much  so,  in  fact,  that  the  probabil- 
ity of  escape  before  conviction  would  be  slight.  Society 
derives  its  power  in  the  matter  solely  from  the  necessity 
of  protection;  therefore,  in  all  cases  of  this  grade  in 
which  the  safety  of  society  does  not  require  the  confine- 
ment of  the  accused  before  trial,  society  has  no  right  to 
deprive  him  of  his  liberty  until  after  conviction. 

The  practice  of  imprisoning  before  trial,  in  cases 
where  some  trifling  offense  was  charged,  never  came  into 
existence  as  the  result  of  a  careful  consideration  of  tlie 
best  interests  of  society,  but  had  its  origin  in  that  medi- 
aeval barbarism  which  regarded  every  kind  of  violation 
of  law  as  a  source  of  profit — a  source  of  revenue  at  first 
for  the  feudal  lord,  and  later  for  the  magistrates,  jailers 
and  otlier  small  officials.  Tlie  more  numerous  the 
charges  and  the  more  protracted  and  complicated  the 
proceedings,  the  fatter  these  officials  got.  And  yet  they 
were  more  consistent  than  we  are.     They  understood 


APPENDIX.  303 

that  the  liberty  of  an   Englishman  meant  the  liberty  of 
the  rich,  and  that  the  term  was  merely  a  beautiful  fiction 
when  applied  to  the  poor;  while  we  incorporate  lengthy 
provisions  about  liberty  in  our  fundamental  laws,  guar^ 
antee   it  to  every  man,  woman  and  child,  and   then  we 
adopt  a  system  and  permit  a  practice  which   robs  the 
fiction    even  of    its  beauty— a  system   and   a    practice 
which    gave    more    suffering,  more    misery  and    more 
degradation  to  the  poor  of  England  than  all  her  wars. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  not  only  still  follow  medi- 
aeval  ways — blindly   make  local  applications  of    brute 
force  for   ills    that    require   constitutional   treatment — 
but  we  still   make  the   failings  and  wrong-doings  of  a 
part  of  our  people   a  source  of  revenue  for   others.     In 
almost  every  city  and  town  there  are  men  who  expect  to 
support  their  families  on  the  toll  to  be  collected  in   the 
shape  of  fees  from  those  that  may,  from  time  to  time,  be 
accused  of  some  violation  of  law.     Think  of  a  band  of 
officials,  men  in  good  standing  in  the  community,  directly 
interested  in  having  the  law  violated,  and  who  would 
starve  if  there  should  suddenly  be  a  cessation  of  wrong- 
doing!    Many  of  them  watch  with  whetted  appetites  for 
an   opportunity  to   have    some  wretch    brought    before 
them,  no    matter  on  what  charge.     If   he  gives  bond, 
there  is  an  extra  fee  for  the  bond;  if  he  is  sent  to  jail, 
there  is  an  extra  fee  for  the  magistrate,  an  extra  fee  for 
the  constable,  and  an  extra  fee  for  the  jailer.     What  is 
it  to  them  that  they  are  crushing  the   self-respect  of  a 
man  and  casting  on  him  and  his  family  a  stigma  which 
may  ruin  him?     The  law  permits  it,  and  they  are  making 
money  out  of  it,  and  that  is  enough.     I   am  informed 


304      OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  A  YD  ITS   VICTIMS. 

that  the  Legislature  of  Maryland,  in  1882,  abolished  the 
"fee  system,"  in  so  far  as  it  related  to  Baltimore,  and 
the  result  was  a  falling  off  in  the  number  of  arrests  for 
minor  offenses  in  that  city,  in  one  year,  from  12,000  to 
7,000,  or  almost  half;  thus  showing  that  the  "  fee  sys- 
tem "  had  been  responsible  ior  nearly  half  of  the  arrests 
theretofore  made. 

In  addition  to  this  there  prevails  too  widely  the 
notion  among  policemen  that  their  standing  and  effi- 
ciency as  peace  officers  are  to  be  determined  by  the  num- 
ber of  people  that  they  run  in.  Hence  the  eagerness  of 
many  policemen  to  make  arrests,  especially  in  cases 
where  they  do  not  apprehend  much  danger.  There  was 
a  time  in  the  history  of  education  in  this  country,  when 
some  people  seemed  to  think  that  the  efficiency  of  a 
school-teacher  was  to  be  determined  largely  by  the  num- 
ber of  pupils  he  flogged — as  if  flogging  and  not  teaching 
was  the  main  object  of  the  school — and  when  there  was 
in  many  schools  a  suppressed  but  constant  hostility 
between  pupils  and  teacher,  and  a  perpetual  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  pupils  to  deceive  or  outwit  the  teacher, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  to  detect  the  pupils;  and 
as  a  result,  offenses  of  all  kinds  against  the  rules  of  the 
school  were  frequent,  and  flogging  was  a  matter  of 
daily  occurrence.  But  now  we  have  got  to  a  point  where 
we  consider  teaching,  and  not  floggifig,  the  chief  end  of 
the  school,  and  we  have  discovered  that  to  have  a  feeling 
of  confidence,  and  even  aff'ection,  between  teacher  and 
pupil,  is  productive  of  far  better  results,  and  that  a  very 
little  use  of  the  rod  is  sufficient  in  most  cases. 

Now,  society  demands  protection  to  life  and  property 


APPEN-DTX.  305 

and  a  preservation  of  the  peace.  That  is  all  that  it  has 
any  right  to  ask.  It  has  no  authority  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  the  sins  of  its  members.  This  is  a  function 
which  the  Almighty  has  thus  far  reserved  to  Himself. 
It  is  with  a  view  to  protection  solely  that  peace  officers 
are  created,  and  their  chief  object  should  be  to  keep  the 
peace;  but,  owing  to  the  fee  system  and  the'false  notion 
with  reference  to  efficiency,  a  practice  just  the  opposite 
in  spirit  has  always  prevailed.  Arrests  appear  to  be  the 
prime  object,  and  lo  protect  life  and  property  seems  a  sec- 
ondary matter. 

Read  the  report  of  some  chief  of  police,  and  see  with 
what  genuine  satisfaction  he  speaks  of  the  large  number 
of  arrests;  it  shows  that  the  force  has  been  doing  some- 
thing. There  is  something  spectacular,  something  almost 
brilliant,  about  our  system;  it  makes  a  large  showing  so  far 
as  numbers  are  concerned.  Sir  Astley  Cooper,  the  great 
English  surgeon,  when  once  in  conversation  with  an- 
other surgeon,  who  boasted  of  his  own  brilliant  perform- 
ances, was  asked  how  many  ^/-////aw/operationshe,  Cooper, 
had  performed  in  his  professional  career — that  is,  opera- 
tions requiring  a  rare  union  of  nerve,  dexterity  and 
skill— to  which  Cooper  replied  that  he  had  performed 
thirteen  operations  which  he  considered  of  that  char- 
acter. "Thirteen,"  exclaimed  the  other  surgeon;  "why, 
I  have  performed  one  hundred  and  fifty  most  brilliant 
operations;  how  many  did  you  save  out  of  your  thir- 
teen?" "Well,"  replied  Cooper,  "I  saved  the  lives  of 
eleven  out  of  the  thirteen;  how  many  did  you  save  out 
of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  ? "  "  Oh,"  was  the  answer, 
"they  all  died;  but  the  operations  were  very  brilliant." 


3o6     Our  penal  machinery  and  its  victims. 

Now,  our  peace-keeping  establishment  points  with 
pride  to  millions  of  annual  arrests,  but  when  we  ask 
how  many  are  saved  to  society  by  reason  of  these  opera- 
tions, we  learn  that  all  the  patients  grow  worse,  except 
such  as  have  sufficient  moral  vitality  to  recover  in  spite 
of  the  treatment  they  receive. 

If  we  think  most  of  that  teacher  who  can  teach  a 
good  school  v/ith  but  little  flogging,  why  should  we  not 
think  most  of  that  policeman  who  can  keep  the  peace, 
can  protect  society,  and  yet  make  but  few  arrests  ?  We 
have  found  that  mutual  confidence  and  affection  between 
teacher  and  pupil,  which  follows  kind  treatment,  is  pro- 
ductive of  better  results  in  the  school  than  mutual 
hostility.  Can  anybody  doubt  that  a  kindly  feeling 
between  the  police  and,  not  the  criminals,  but  the  poor 
and  the  outcast,  would  produce  better  results  than  the 
mutual  hostility  which  now  exists  ? 

"  Oh,  but,"  says  some  one,  "  there  is  too  much  senti- 
ment about  this;  those  people  are  violators  of  the  law 
and  ought  to  be  punished;  they  have  done  wrong  and 
ought  to  suffer,  and  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  what 
becomes  of  them." 

To  this  I  first  demur,  and  then  answer:  I  demur 
because  it  does  not  lie  in  the  mouth  of  any  person  not 
possessed  of  a  perfectly  white  soul  to  raise  this  objec- 
tion, and  if  none  other  raise  it,  we  shall  hear  little  of  it 
in  this  world,  for  none  of  us  are  perfectly  pure,  and  none 
other  has  a  right  to  sit  in  moral  judgment  on  his  fellow- 
man;  very  likely  even  the  objector,  if  judged  by  the 
principles  of  eternal  justice,  would  himself  be  in  the 
lock-up.     And   I  ansvvcr  that,  in  the  first  place  it  is  not 


APPENDIX.  307 

correct,  because,  as  already  shown,  over  one-third  of  all 
arrested  by  the  police  are  discharged,  because  not 
shown  to  be  guilty  of  any  offense  whatever,  and,  further, 
.  if  it  is  true,  as  competent  observers  assert,  that  notwith- 
standing our  numerous  arrests,  crime  is  on  the  increase, 
that  our  present  system  makes  criminals  of  many  that 
would  otherwise  not  become  such,  then  it  should  be 
changed;  and,  as  we  have  been  trying  brute  force  and 
the  crushing  policy  WMth  such  unsatisfactory  results, 
let  us  stop  locking  up  the  young  before  conviction,  and 
dispense  with  a  little  of  the  brute  force,  and  in  those 
cases  in  which  something  must  be  done,  try  a  system  of 
development,  which,  w^hile  it  will  protect  society  better 
than  the  present  system,  will  also  make  it  at  least  possi- 
ble for  the  accused  to  come  out  with  more  character, 
moral  strength,  and  self  respect,  than  he  had  when 
taken  into  custody. 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS? 

[.4?t   adch-ess  delivered  lie/ore  the  Sunset  Club,  of  Chicago,  Alarch  sj, 
i8go,  by  John  P.  Al/ge/d.} 

No  man  can  examine  the  great  penal  system  of  this 
country  without  being-  astounded  at  its  magnitude,  its 
cost,  and  its  unsatisfactory  results.  There  are  in  the 
United  States  upward  of  2,200  county  jails,  several  hun- 
dred lock-ups,  or  police-stations,  between  tifty  and  sixty 
penitentiaries,  with  work-shops,  machinery,  etc.  The 
first  cost  of  tlie  erection  of  all  these  buildings  and  shops 
has  been  estimated  at  upward  of  fiv^e  hundred  millions, 
which  is  dead  capital.  The  interest,  at  5  per  cent.,  upon 
which  sum  alone,  would  annually  amount  to  $25,000,000. 
To  this  must  be  added  the  sums  annually  appropriated 
out  of  the  treasury  to  feed  the  prisoners,  pay  the  officers, 
judicial  and  executive,  and  keep  up  and  maintain  all 
these  institutions,  which  sums  have  been  estimated 
at  upward  of  $50,000,000,  to  say  nothing  of  the  costs 
paid  by  the  accused;  there  are,  in  addition  to  the  many 
thousands  of  policemen  and  detectives,  about  70,000  con- 
stables in  this  country,  and  about  as  many  magistrates. 
There  are  upward  of  2,200  sheriffs,  and  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  12,000  deputy  sheriffs.  Then  come  the  grand 
juries,  petit  juries,  judges  and  lawyers;  next  the  keepers 
and  their  numerous  assistants  for  all  these  prisons. 
On  the  whole,  there  are  about  a  million  of  men  partly 
or  wholly,  supporting  their  families  from  this  source,  and 
as  I  am  on  the  list,  I  may  speak  with  freedom,  and  say 
that,  as  a  rule,  they  are  comfortable,  are  anxious  to  hold 
on,  and  ready  to  defend  the  system  which  gives  them 
and  their  families  bread. 


WHAT  SHALL    WE  DO   WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS?     309 

A  glance  at  this  system  almost  suggests  the  question 
whether  society  has  any  other  object  to  care  for,  or  mis- 
sion to  accomplish,  than  simply  to  maintain  this  machin- 
ery. Looking  at  its  workings,  we  find  that  there  are  in 
the  neighborhood  of  75,000  convicts  in  the  various  pen- 
itentiaries. As  the  average  sentence  is  about  two  years 
and  one-half,  the  whole  number,  on  the  average,  is,  there- 
fore, renewed  once  every  two  years  and  one-half;  so  that 
there  are  in  the  neighborhood  of  three  quarters  of  a  mill- 
ion of  men  living  in  our  midst  who  have  had  a  peniten- 
tiary experience.  We  next  see  that  upward  of  5  per 
cent,  of  the  entire  population  is  arrested  by  the  police 
and  other  officials  every  year;  so  that  there  are  about 
three  million  people  arrested  and  "run  in"  every  year. 
Assuming  that  one-third  of  them  are  what  are  called 
"repeaters  "^ that  is,  have  been  arrested  before  —  it 
would  still  leave  two  millions  who  are  for  the  first  time 
each  year  broken  into  what  may  be  called  a  prison  expe- 
rience; and  yet,  notwithstanding  the  vast  army  of  men 
employed,  the  millions  annually  expended,  the  numerous 
arrests,  the  large  number  imprisoned,  crime  is  said  to  be 
increasing,  and  our  whole  penal  system  is  pronounced 
to  be  a  failure,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  where 
they  have  similar  systems. 

And  the  question  is  asked  by  thoughtful  men:  What 
shall  be  done?  Society  must  be  protected.  If  the  pres- 
ent system  is  a  failure,  what  shall  we  substitute.?  It  has 
been  but  a  few  years  since  the  general  public  gave  this 
question  any  consideration.  Heretofore  the  only  rem- 
edy ever  suggested  or  thought  of  was  the  application  of 
brute  force.  In  all  the  past  centuries,  and  in  every 
country  on  the  globe,  methods  of  punishment  for  the 
prevention  of  crime  have  prevailed  which  were  the 
embodiment  of  brutality  and  of  fiendish  cruelty.  The 
prisoners  were  often  transformed  into  either  raving 
maniacs  or  wild   beasts,   while   the  keepers   of  prisons 


3IO     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

became  fiends  in  human  form;  and  in  all  times,  and  in 
every  country  on  the  globe,  this  system  of  human  tor- 
ture was  a  failure.  Brutality  never  yet  protected  society 
or  helped  humanity.  There  was  a  time  in  England 
when  men  were  hanged  or  burned  for  trivial  offenses; 
but  instead  of  deterring,  the  very  shadow  of  the  gallows 
seemed  to  produce  a  crop  of  fresh  offenders,  and  the 
glow  of  human  embers  invited  new  victims  to  the 
stake. 

One  difficulty  with  our  system  is  that  it  proceeds  on 
the  idea  of  expiation,  that  is,  paying  for  having  violated 
the  law.  In  feudal  times  every  violation  of  law  was  a 
source  of  revenue  to  the  feudal  lord,  or  to  the  king.  The 
fine  was  paid  to  him,  or  whatever  penalty  was  paid,  went 
to  him,  the  more  serious  of  offenses  being  followed  by  a 
confiscation  of  property.  The  imposition,  then,  of  a 
fine  was  one  of  the  means  employed  by  the  strong  to 
plunder  the  weak.  Now  we  have  advanced  until  theo- 
retically we  declare  that  crime  should  not  be  a  source  of 
revenue,  and  that  it  is  only  for  the  protection  of  society 
that  punishment  can  be  inflicted;  yet  when  we  come  to 
impose  penalties,  we  proceed  upon  the  theory  that  if  the 
offender  pays  for  or  expiates  the  violation,  then  that 
ends  all.  He  can  go  right  on  and  violate  the  law  a 
second  time,  and  if  he  pays  the  penalty  all  is  wiped 
out.  Instead  of  inquiring  into  the  history,  the  environ- 
ment and  the  character  of  the  offender,  and  then  apply- 
ing a  treatment  which  will  in  reality  protect  society,  we 
simply  fix  a  price  upon  each  infraction;  and  we  treat 
those  who  are  not  vicious,  but  have  been  unfortunate, 
and  have  been  guilty  of  some  slight  offense,  in  almost 
the  same  manner  that  we  treat  the  vicious  who  have 
been  guilty  of  graver  offenses;  and  we  put  both  in  a 
condition  in  which  it  is  next  to  impossible  for  either  to 
make  an  honest  living  when  they  have  been  once  im- 
prisoned. 


WHAT  SHALL    WE  DO    WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS?     311 

I  desire  to  consider  the  subject  rather  from  a  practi- 
cal than  from  a  theoretical  standpoint.  The  first  impor- 
tant question  that  arises  when  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  workings  of  our  system,  is,  where  do  all 
these  people  who  are  arrested  come  from?  What  is 
the  environment  which  produces  them?  As  we  have 
not  the  time  to  inquire  extensively  into  home-conditions, 
or  the  training  of  the  youth,  we  will  start  at  once  at  the 
point  where  they  are  first  brought  to  our  view,  and  that 
is  in  the  police  court,  and  we  will  soon  see  where  they 
come  from. 

The  report  of  the  superintendent  of  police  of  Chi- 
cago for  the  year  1888  shows  that  in  that  year  the  police 
officers  of  Chicago  alone  arrested  and  carried  to  the 
lock-up  50,432  people,  40,867  of  whom  were  males, 
9,565  of  whom  were  females.  The  great  majority  of 
them  were  under  thirty  years  of  age;  nearly  9,000  were 
under  twenty  years  of  age;  a  little  over  30,000  of  them 
were  American  born;  the  others  were  made  up  of  vari- 
ous nationalities.  The  same  report  shows  that  10,263 
were  common  laborers;  18,336  had  no  occupation;  1,975 
were  housekeepers.  Some  of  you  may  ask:  What  were 
these  people  arrested  for,  and  what  was  done  with  them? 
Well,  the  same  report  shows  that  upwards  of  15,000,  or 
nearly  one-third,  were  discharged  in  the  police  court, 
because  it  was  not  proven  that  they  had  violated  any 
law  or  ordinance;  and,  out  of  the  whole  number 
arrested,  only  2,192  were  held  over  on  criminal  charges. 
The  rest  were  fined  for  a  violation  of  some  ordinance, 
generally  on  the  charge  of  disorderly  conduct.  The 
police  magistrate  having  no  power  to  try  a  charge  of 
crime  or  grave  misdemeanor,  it  follows  that  every  case 
of  that  nature  had  to  be  sent  to  the  grand  jury;  and  I 
repeat  that,  out  of  the  whole  50,000,  only  a  little  over 
2,000  were  held  over;  and  the  records  of  the  criminal 
court  show  that,  of  these,  more  than  two-thirds  fell  to 
the  ground  because  no  offense  could  be  proven. 


312     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIM'^. 

Bearing  in  mind  that  those  arrested  were  young; 
that  they  come  from  the  poorer  classes,  from  those  who 
are  already  fighting  an  unequal  fight  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  I  ask  you  what  effect  do  you  suppose  the  act  of 
arresting  them  upon  the  street,  possibly  clubbing  them, 
then  marching  them  to  the  lock-up,  and  shoving  them 
into  a  cell — what  effect  did  all  this  have  upon  the  15,000 
who  were  not  shown  to  have  been  guilty  of  any  offense, 
who  had  violated  neither  law  of  God  nor  statutes  of  man? 
They  were  treated  while  under  arrest  as  if  guilty  of 
highway  robbery.  Did  this  treatment  strengthen  them, 
and  make  them  better  able  to  hold  their  heads  up,  or 
did  it  tend  to  break  their  self-respect,  to  weaken  them? 
Did  it  not  embitter  them  against  society  and  a  system 
which  had  done  them  this  wrong?  Will  they  not  feel 
the  humiliation  and  degradation  as  long  as  they  live; 
and  will  that  very  treatment  not  mark  the  beginning  in 
many  cases  of  a  downward. criminal  career? 

But  we  will  follow  the  subject  a  little  further.  You 
are  aware  that  when  a  fine  is  imposed  in  the  police  court, 
if  it  is  not  paid  the  defendant  is  taken  to  the  House  of 
Correction,  that  is,  the  Bridewell,  which  for  all  practical 
purposes  is  a  penitentiary.  It  has  for  many  years  been 
in  charge  of  Mr.  Charles  E.  Felton,  who  is  one  of  the 
most  experienced  and  most  intelligent  prison  managers 
in  the  United  States.  In  his  report  for  that  year  he 
says:  "In  the  year  1888  the  number  of  prisoners  was 
10,717,  the  average  daily  number  imprisoned  was  764^, 
the  average  duration  of  imprisonment  was  but  2610 
days.  Of  the  above  who  were  received  during  the  year 
all  save  ninty-six  were  convicted  for  petty  offenses,  the 
executions  under  which  they  were  imprisoned  showing 
their  offense  to  have  been  chiefly  disorderly  conduct,  or 
other  violation  of  municipal  or  town  or  village  ordinance, 
mere  petty  misdemeanors,  punishable  by  fine  only,  the 
imprisonment  being  the  result  of  the  non-payment  of 
the  fine.'^ 


WHAT  SHALL    WE   DO   WITH  OUR  CRLMLNALS?     313 

Reject  upon  this  a  moment:  10,717  were  imprisoned 
during  the  year,  and  out  of  this  number  only  ninty-six 
were  convicted  of  criminal  offenses.  The  others,  in 
the  language  of  Mr.  Felton,  were  guilty  of  mere  petty 
misdemeanors,  punishable  by  fine  only,  and  they  were 
imprisoned  because  they  could  not  pay  this  fine.  Of 
these  10,717,  1,670  were  women  and  girls. 

Speaking  of  their  social  relations,  Mr.  Felton's  report 
says  that  2,744  were  married;  7,184  claimed  to  be  single; 
2,121  had  children.  It  also  shows  that  nearly  4,000  had 
no  parents  living;  upwards  of  1,600  had  only  mother 
living,  and  822  had  only  a  father  living,  showing  that 
one-half  were  without  proper  parental  supervision. 

Several  years  ago  Mr.  Fred  L.  Thompson,  chaplain 
of  the  penitentiary  at  Chester,  Illinois,  made  a  personal 
inquiry  of  500  convicts  in  regard  to  their  early  environ- 
ment, and  the  result  showed  that  419,  or  upwards  of  four- 
fifths  were  parentless,  or  without  proper  home  influence 
before  reaching  eighteen  years  of  age.  Also  that  218 
never  had  attended  school.  Mr.  Thompson  sums  up  an 
interesting  report  in  these  words:  "I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  are  two  prime  causes  of  crime, 
first,  the  want  of  proper  home  influence  in  childhood,  and, 
second,  the  lack  of  thorough,well  disciplitied  training  in  early 
life.''  I  will  only  add,  it  is  the  boy  and  girl  who  grow 
up  on  the  streets  or  amid  squalor  and  misery  at  home 
whose  path  seems  forever  to  wind  toward  the  prison 
door,  and  whatever  system  will  train  the  youth,  or  will 
let  light  into  the  hovels,  cellars  and  garrets  where  children 
are  growing  up,  will  reduce  the  ranks  of  criminals. 

The  fact  that  all  save  ninty-six  of  the  inmates  of  the 
Bridewell  for  that  year  were  there  because  they  could 
not  pay  a  fine,  shows  that  they  came  from  the  poor, the  very 
poor,  the  unfortunate.  And  as  they  had  not  been  charged 
with  any  serious  offense,  and  as  the  treatment  which 
they  got  in  the  Bridewell  in   261^0  davs  would   not  build 


314     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

up  or  strengthen  chiiracter,  could  not  educate  the  mind 
or  train  the  hand;  and  inasmuch  as  the  treatment  there, 
as  in  all  prisons,  of  necessity  tends  to  weaken  self-respect, 
and  as  all  these  had  to  go  out  of  the  prison  absolutely 
penniless  and  friendless — forthey  were  sent  there  because 
they  were  penniless  and  friendless — I  ask  what  were  these 
people  to  do  when  they  came  out?  What  could  they  do 
to  make  an  honest  living?  Take  the  1,670  women  and 
girls  who  were  sent  there  because  they  had  not  the 
money  with  which  to  pay  a  small  fine,  and  had  not  a 
friend  upon  earth  to  pay  it  for  them;  can  any  of  you  sug- 
gest what  they  could  go  at  when  they  were  turned  out  of 
the  Bridewell  and  found  themselves  on  the  corner  of 
Twenty-sixth  street  and  California  avenue?  There  was 
absolutely  nothing  left  for  them  except  to  go  back  to  their 
old  haunts — go  anywhere  where  they  could  get  something 
to  eat,  and  a  night's  lodging.  And  the  prison  experience 
they  had  had  only  degraded  them,  weakened  them  and 
sank  them  lower  into  depravity. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  men  and  boys  confined 
there.  The  city  is  full  of  men  who  have  not  been 
imprisoned,  and  who,  during  a  large  part  of  the  year, 
can  get  nothing  to  do.  It  was  estimated  that  this  winter 
there  were  60,000  men  in  Chicago  out  of  employment. 
This  being  so,  what  show  is  there  for  a  boy,  or  a  young 
man,  coming  out  of  the  Bridewell,  to  earn  an  honest  liv- 
ing? And  if  imprisonment  in  the  Bridewell  has  not 
helped  them,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has,  as  a  rule,  injured 
them,  wherein  has  society  been  benefited  by  the  fact 
that  it  imprisoned  10,717  people  on  an  average  of  twenty- 
six  and  one-tenth  days,  because  they  had  committed 
trivial  offenses?  But  some  of  you  will  ask,  Well,  what 
have  you  to  suggest?  Society  must  be  protected.  We 
must  preserve  order.  To  which  I  reply,  unquestionably 
society  must  be  protected  at  all  hazards,  and  we  must 
preserve   order  and  protect  life  and   property.     But  I 


WHAT  SHALL    WE  DO   WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS?     315 

insist,  to  begin  with,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  arrest  and 
lock  up  people  who  have  committed  no  offense,  merely 
to  preserve  order;  that  the  15,000  who  were  not  shown 
to  Have  committed  any  offense  in  that  year,  should  never 
have  been  arrested  and  "run  in"  by  the  police;  that 
arresting  them  neither  tended  to  protect  society  nor  to 
preserve  order,  but  was  a  wrong — in  many  cases  an  out- 
rage—  for  which  society,  in  the  end,  must  suffer;  that 
the  trouble  is,  that  there  has  grown  up  in  our  police 
force  a  feeling  that  their  efBcienc)^  is  to  be  determined 
largely  by  the  number  of  people  they  run  in,  which  is 
all  wrong.  Again,  police  officers  too  frequently  feel  that 
when  they  have  arrested  somebody,  that  it  is  then  incum- 
bent upon  them  to  make  a  case  against  him,  and  hence 
are  reckless  in  their  swearing;  so  that  it  frequently  hap- 
pens that  juries  in  criminal  courts  decline  to  give  much 
credit  to  the  testimony  of  a  policeman.  Policemen 
should  feel  that  their  standing  is  not  to  be  determined 
by  the  number  of  people  whom  they  may  happen  to 
arrest,  but  rather  from  their  ability  to  preserve  law  and 
order;  to  protect  life  and  property,  by  making  but  few 
arrests. 

I  am  satisfied,  further,  that  it  would  have  been  better 
if  a  great  majority  of  the  28,000  who  were  fined  in  the 
police  court  had  been  let  go,  the  offenses  being  so  trivial 
that,  in  fact,  it  would  have  been  better  for  society  in  the 
long  run  if  no  arrest  at  all  had  been  made. 

Then,  in  m.y  judgment,  we  should  adopt  here  a  sys- 
tem wTiich  has  been  in  operation  in  Massachusetts  for 
over  ten  years,  whereby  the  city  is  divided  into  dis- 
tricts, called  probation  districts,  and  in  each  district 
there  is  appointed  a  probation  officer,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  visit  the  prison  every  day  in  his  district;  get  the  narrie 
of  the  prisoner;  go  to  his  residence;  see  his  family; 
acquaint  himself,  as  far  as  is  possible,  .with  the  history 
and   character  of  the  prisoner,  his  home  influences  and 


3 1 6      OUR  PEN  A  L  MA  CHINER  Y  A  ND  I TS  VIC  TIMS. 

general  environment,  and  if  it  is  found  that  he  is  not 
vicious,  and  if  the  charge  against  him  is  not  of  such  a 
heinous  character  as  to  require  that  he  be  confined,  the 
probation  officer  recommends  to  the  justice  or  to  the 
judge,  as  the  case  may  be,  that  if  the  accused  is  guilty, 
instead  of  sentence  being  pronounced,  the  case  be  con- 
tinued from  term  to  term,  for  the  period  of  a  year, 
sometimes  more.  This  done,  he  is  released;  the  proba- 
tion officer  assists  him  in  getting  employment,  where 
this  is  practicable;  assists  him  with  counsel  and  advice; 
keeps  a  supervision  over  him  for  the  period  of  a  year, 
requiring  him  to  report  from  time  to  time,  and  if  he 
does  not  do  well,  the  probation  officer  orders  him 
arrested,  and  he  is  then  sentenced. 

This  system  has  been  in  operation  in  Boston  for 
upwards  of  ten  years.  The  city  of  Boston  was  divided, 
as  I  understand  it,  into  three  districts,  and  I  have  here 
the  reports  of  the  probation  officers  covering  a  period 
of  ten  years.  In  one  district  during  the  year  1888, 
1,139  prisoners  were  taken  charge  of  by  the  proba- 
tion officer.  Of  this  number,  twelve  ran  away,  or 
about  one  per  cent.;  fifty-two  had  to  be  surrendered, 
because  they  did  not  do  well;  but  all  the  remainder 
did  well — led  sober  and  industrious  lives.  During  ten 
years  in  one  district,  7,251  prisoners  were  taken  charge 
of  by  the  probation  officer.  Of  this  entire  number, 
during  the  ten  years,  only  107  ran  away,  a  very  remark- 
able fact,  which  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  considering 
the  best  method  of  dealing  with  people  who  have  vio- 
lated the  law.  Only  a  little  over  one  per  cent,  ran  away. 
Of  the  7,251,  473  had  to  be  returned  for  sentence.  All 
the  remainder  did  well.  I  will  simply  say  that  the 
results  in  the  other  probation  districts  of  Boston  were 
of  the  same  character. 

In  speaking  of  the  saving  ta  both  the  prisoner  and 
to    society   by    this    method    of    treatment,   the   officer 


WHAT  SHALL    IVE  DO    WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS?     317 

reports  that,  had  the  lowest  sentence  possible  been 
imposed,  the  aggregate  time  of  all  the  prisoners  which 
must  have  been  spent  in  prison  during  the  ten  years 
would  have  amounted  to  1,715  years,  which  was 
saved  to  society  and  to  the  accused,  while  the  saving  in 
expense  to  the  public  by  not  irnprisoning  amounted  to 
many  thousands  of  dollars  per  annum.  The  fact  of 
having  an  intelligent  and  humane  man  acting  as  proba- 
tion officer,  visiting  the  home  of  the  accused  and  assist- 
ing his  family  with  counsel  and  advice,  can  scarcely  be 
over-estimated;  in  many  cases  it  will  save  not  only  the 
children,  but  also  the  parents  from  a  criminal  career. 
One  of  the  probation  officers  of  Boston,  in  speaking  of 
those  who  were  saved  from  imprisonment  in  his  district, 
says:  "Generally  they  have  since  lived  good,  orderly 
lives,  and  have  been  a  blessing  to  their  families,  and 
where  they  were  married,  kept  their  homes  from 
being  broken  up,  and  their  children  from  being  sent  to 
charitable  institutions.  In  many  cases  they  have 
changed  from  lives  of  vice  and  crime  to  become  good 
citizens." 

If  we  were  to  make  our  system  what  the  law  really 
intends  it  should  be,  and  that  is,  protect  society  against 
crime,  and  would  put  a  stop  to  the  practice  of  arresting 
and  breaking  into  prison  experiences  those  who  have 
been  guilty  of  no  offense,  and  would,  further,  put  a  stop 
to  the  practice  of  "  running  in  "  all  who  may  have  been 
guilty  of  some  trivial  offense,  and  would  apply  the 
Massachusetts  system  of  probation  in  cases  where  the 
officer  felt  it  could  be  safely  done — for  in  many  cases  it 
could  not  be  done — we  would  so  greatly  reduce  the  num- 
ber who  would  have  to  be  sent  to  prison  that  they  could 
then  be  detained,  not  for  twenty-six  and  one-tenth  days 
in  the  Bridewell,  or  from  coie  to  three  years  in  the  peni- 
tentiary, and  not  under  the  conditions  that  exist  now  in 
our   prisons,    where    reformation    and    instruction    are 


31^     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS   VICTIMS. 

almost  impossible;  but  they  could  be  detained  until,  in 
the  judgment  of  a  competent  board,  the  accused  had 
acquired  such  habits  of  industry  and  had  developed 
sufficient  strength  of  character  to  go  out  and  make  his 
way  in  the  world,  and  jthen  he  should  be  assisted  in  get- 
ting a  position,  so  that  he  would  not  at  once  find  himself 
penniless,  friendless  and  homeless.  They  should  be  sent 
to  prison  on  an  indeterminate  sentence,  nearly  in  accord 
with  the  system  that  has  now  for  a  number  of  years  been 
in  vogue  in  the  Elmira  prison  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
where  prisoners  must  remain  at  least  a  year,  and  can  be 
kept  a  number  of  years  if,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
board,  it  is  not  safe  to  let  them  at  large.  Here  prisoners 
go  through  a  regular  course  of  instruction,  having 
regular  hours  of  labor,  and  the  treatment  is  of  such  a 
character  as  is  calculated  to  develop  and  build  up  the 
man.  And  the  management,  instead  of  knowing  noth- 
ing about  the  man,  as  is  the  case  now  with  us,  is  put  in 
possession  of  his  whole  history,  all  the  information  that 
can  be  gathered  in  regard  to  it,  and  whenever  it  becomes 
satisfied  that  the  accused  can  with  safety  be  given  his 
liberty,  the  management  first  secures  him  employment, 
and  exercises,  for  a  period  of  at  least  six  months,  a  sort  of 
general  supervision  over  him.  If  he  does  not  do  well  they 
can  take  him  back.  If  he  loses  his  place  they  assist  him  in 
getting  another;  and  if  he  does  well  for  a  period  of  a  year, 
he  is  discharged.  And  at  different  times  men  who  have 
been  discharged  and  then  suddenly  found  themselves  out 
of  emploj'ment,  rather  than  beg  or  steal,  voluntarily 
came  back  to  theinstitution  and  asked  to  be  taken  in  until 
they  could  get  another  job;  and  here  again,  there  were 
scarcely  any  desertions,  by  those  who  were  on  parole. 

Under  such  a  system  as^this,  hardened  and  dangerous 
criminals  would  not  be  set  at  liberty  every  two  or  three 
years,  as  they  are  now,  to  go  out  and  prey  upon  society; 
but  they  would  be  kept    confined   until   they  could  be 


WHAT  SHALL    IVE  DO    WITH  OUR  CRIMINALS?     2>\^ 

safely  set  at  liberty;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  good 
intentioned  who  hr.d  got  into  trouble  would  not  need  to 
be  confined  behind  brick  walls  until  they  became  hard- 
ened, stolid  and  desperate,  as  is  now  the  case. 

In  addition  to  this,  there  should,  in  my  judgment,  be 
given  every  convict  in  prison  an  opportunity  to  earn 
something  over  and  above  the  cost  of  keeping  him.  I 
know  this  involves  difficulties,  but  none  that  can  not  be 
overcome.  He  should  be  not  only  permitted  to  earn 
something,  but  he  should  be  required  to  earn  something 
to  carry  to  his  credit  before  he  is  again  set  at  liberty;  so 
that  when  he  leaves  the  prison  doors,  he  will  have  some- 
thing to  sustain  him  for  a  while;  and  this  should  not  be 
paid  him  at  once,  but  in  installments,  so  that  he  can  not 
lose  it  at  once;  or,  if  he  has  a  family  to  support,  he  not 
only  should  be  permitted  to  work,  but  required  to  earn 
something  while  in  prison  for  the  support  of  his  family. 

You  will  see,  by  such  a  system  as  I  have  outlined,  the 
number  whom  we  would  have  in  the  end  to  imprison 
would  be  greatly  reduced;  and  these,  too,  could  be  so 
separated  that  the  great  majority  could  be  set  to  work, 
if  necessary,  outside  of  the  prison.  They  could  farm; 
could  be  made  to  work  the  roads;  could  be  made  to  do 
any  kind  of  work,  because  the  temptation  to  desert  would 
then  be  practically  taken  away.  I  must  say,  however, 
that  the  temptation  to  desert  is  not  so  great  at  any  time 
as  many  people  suppose. 

Major  McClaughrey,  who  was  for  many  years  warden 
at  the  Joliet  Penitentiary,  several  years  ago  told  me  that 
he  was  then  carrying  on  a  small  farm  near  the  peniten- 
tiai-y,  and  working  it  with  convicts,  and  they  had  had  no 
trouble  at  all  upon  this  point,  and  that  he  had  repeatedly 
urged  the  State  to  buy  him  three  or  four  hundred  acres, 
and  said  if  it  would  do  so,  he  could  work  the  farm  with  the 
prisoners,  and  could  raise  not  only  what  was  needed  for 
his  institution,  but  for  other  State  institutions,  and  that 
he  had  no  fear  at  all  of  desertion. 


320     OUR  PENAL  MACHINERY  AND  ITS  VICTIMS- 

If  that  is  true  at  present,  then  under  a  system 
whereby  the  prisoner  was  made  to  feel  that  he  was  doing 
something  for  himself  instead  of  simply  wearing  his  life 
out  for  the  benefit  of  some  wealthy  contractor,  very  little 
would  need  to  be  feared  upon  that  point,  and  the  number 
of  prisoners  who  were  serving  long  sentences,  and  who 
would  be  or  were  considered  dangerous,  and  therefore 
have  to  be  kept  at  work  in  the  prison,  would  be  so  small 
by  the  time  they  were  divided  up  among  the  various 
industries  which  are  now  carried  on  inside  of  the  prison, 
the  number  in  each  industry  would  be  so  small  that  we 
would  hear  no  more  about  prison-made  goods  coming 
in  competition  with  free  labor.  The  question  of  prison 
labor  would  solve  itself. 

We  would  thus  save  thousands  of  boys  from  a  prison 
experience,  and  a  possible  criminal  career.  We  would 
put  an  end  to  the  practice  of  degrading  and  breaking 
down  women  and  girls  by  repeated  imprisonments  for 
trivial  offenses,  which  never  does  any  good.  We  would 
prevent  the  really  vicious  and  hardened  criminals  from 
being  turned  loose  upon  society  every  year  or  two.  Both 
the  convict  and  society  would  be  the  gainers. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hiigard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


A     000  864  089     8 


